UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT   LOS  ANGELES 


THE  GIFT  OF 

MAY  TREAT  MORRISON 

IN  MEMORY  OF 

ALEXANDER  F  MORRISON 


ESSAYS 


PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR 

AB     CONNECTED     WITH 

KATURVL     LAW     A.  N  D     THE     CONSTITUTION 
OF     SOCIETY. 

BY    FRANCIS    LIEBER. 


NEW    YORK: 

HARPER   «K   BROTHERS,  PUBLISHERS. 

1856. 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1841  by 

Harper  &  Brothers,  . 
In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  Southern  District  of  New-York, 


HB 


7ol 

INTRODUCTION. 

BY     REV.     A.     POTTER,    D.D. 

Having  been  requested  by  the  author  and 
his  publishers  to  introduce  this  volume  with 
a  few  prefatory  remarks,  I  take  pleasure  in 
complying  with  the  request,  but  without 
any  hope  that  I  shall  be  able  to  add  either 
^  to  the  interest  or  the  utility  of  Essays  pro- 
*  ceeding  from  one  so  well  known  and  so 
3  justly  distinguished  as  Mr.  Lieber. 
uj  Studious  men,  who  are  accustomed  to  in- 
<  vestigate  the  nature  and  foundation  of  our 
^  rights,  are  well  aware  that  the  theory  of 
2  property,  as  unfolded  by  some  of  the  great- 
■3  est  writers  of  modern  times,  is  incomplete. 
C  By  some,  as  Hobbes,  for  instance,  property 
is  represented  as  a  gift  or  grant  from  the 
government,  and  as  held,  therefore,  subject, 
of  right  and  without  reserve,  to  its  disposal. 
Grotius  and  PufFendorf  supposed  that  they 


z 


C9 


IV  INTRODUCTION. 

had  discovered  the  origin  of  the  right  to 
property  in  a  prior  occupancy  ;  while  Locke, 
Barbeyrac,  and  Stewart  ascribe  it  to  labour. 
Paley,  who,  with  his  usual  sagacity  and  prac- 
tical wisdom,  was  able  to  detect  the  insuffi- 
ciency of  each  of  these  theories  to  account 
for  all  the  facts,  undertook  to  gather  from 
them  the  materials  for  a  new  and  more  com- 
prehensive system.  His  success  was  not 
complete.  Some  of  his  doctrines  are  un- 
satisfactory, and  his  views — especially  in  re- 
gard to  property  in  land,  and  the  right  of 
transmitting  estates  by  will — are  liable  to 
serious  abuse. 

In  treating  of  the  origin  of  property,  wri- 
ters have  not  always  distinguished  between 
its  actual  and  its  jural  origin;  between  the 
manner  in  which  it  Avas  acquired  in  fact,  and 
the  manner  in  which  it  might  be  acquired 
rightfully.  They  have  laid  great  stress,  too, 
upon  imaginary  compacts  in  the  infancy  of 
society,  or  upon  the  formal  action  of  govern- 
ments. The  foundation  which  has  been 
laid  for  property  in  the  very  nature  of  man 
and  of  human  society — its  intimate  connex- 


INTRODUCTION.  V 

ion  with  the  progress  of  civilization,  and 
with  the  development,  not  only  of  industry, 
but  of  some  of  our  noblest  and  most  re- 
fined sentiments,  all  this  has  been  in  a  great 
measure  overlooked.  Instead  of  interroga- 
ting consciousness,  and  finding  there  in  our 
primitive  feelings  and  wants  its  true  origin, 
philosophers  have  endeavoured  to  deduce 
this  right  from  some  single  axiom  of  natural 
law,  overlooking  the  diversity  and  compli- 
cation of  circumstances  with  which  it  en- 
twines itself,  and  which  become,  in  the 
course  of  time,  part  of  its  very  substance. 
They  have  supposed  it  necessary,  too,  to  go 
back  to  a  period  when  everything  was  held 
in  common,  and  when  this  institution  Avas 
formally  voted  into  existence,  by  the  joint 
suffrages  of  all,  or  by  the  authoritative  decree 
of  the  few  ;  not  remembering  that  these  are 
periods,  of  which  there  is  no  trace  in  the 
early  history  of  our  race,  nor  any  example 
in  its  present  state.  To  expose  these  er- 
rors, and  to  demonstrate  the  connexion  of 
property  with  the  earliest  and  most  lasting 
necessities  of  our  being — to  show  that,  in- 


VI  INTRODUCTION. 

Stead  of  being  the^  creature  of  law  or  gov- 
ernment, it  must  have  had  being  long  before 
formal  governments  existed,  and  that  it  con- 
stituted, in  truth,  one  principal  reason  for 
their  establishment — this  is  an  important 
service  to  philosophy,  and  has  been  render- 
ed, by  the  writer  of  this  volume,  in  a  forcible 
and  impressive  manner. 

It  is  not  to  be  expected  that  minds  trained 
in  different  schools,  and  accustomed  to  sur- 
vey subjects  from  different  points  of  view, 
will  always  reach  the  same  conclusions. 
But  it  is  believed  that  few  persons,  in  the 
habit  of  reflecting  on  this  branch  of  Natural 
Law,  will  rise  from  the  perusal  of  these  Es- 
says without  a  high  respect  for  the  author's 
powers,  or  without  feeling  that  they  have 
gained  new  light  on  a  difficult  and  much- 
contested  subject.  The  discussion  is  en- 
riched with  many  pertinent  and  striking  il- 
lustrations, derived  from  travellers  and  his- 
torians, and  is  pervaded  by  that  suggestive 
spirit  which  belongs  only  to  works  of  the 
higher  class  in  philosophy,  and  which  has  a 
peculiar  charm  for  the  thoughtful  reader. 


INTRODUCTION.  VU 

It  is  not,  however,  for  such  readers  only 
that  these  Essays  Avill  have  interest.  We 
live  in  an  age,  when  all  questions  respecting 
natural  rights  are  opened  for  renewed  ex- 
amination, and  in  a  country,  where  free  scope 
is  given  for  the  boldest  discussion  by  all  the 
people.  We  live,  too,  when  abuses  of  every 
kind  are  the  subjects  of  searching  scrutiny, 
and  when,  in  their  impatience  of  such  abuses, 
men  are  ready  for  almost  any  change  which 
the  rash  or  interested  may  propose.  At 
such  a  time,  it  is  to  be  expected  that  the  in- 
equalities which  prevail  in  the  distribution 
of  property  will  excite  fresh  attention,  and 
that  men  will  charge,  now  on  the  institu- 
tion itself,  and  now  on  the  laws  which  reg- 
ulate it,  evils  which  ought,  in  justice,  to  be 
ascribed  to  their  own  improvidence.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  must  be  remembered  that 
there  are  evils  inherent  in,  or  incidental  to, 
everything  human,  and  that,  in  the  case  of 
property,  these  evils  have  unquestionably 
been  aggravated  by  bad  legislation.  To  cor- 
rect such  legislation  becomes,  of  course,  a 
high  duty,  and  he  who  resists  all  change  is  as 


VIU  INTRODUCTION. 

unwise  and  unpatriotic  as  he  who  looks  upon 
it  as,  in  itself,  a  blessing.  It  is  the  first  and 
most  imperative  duty  of  the  philosopher,  as 
of  the  statesmen,  to  mediate  between  the  fa- 
natical excesses  of  these  reforming  ai  d  con- 
servative tendencies  in  society.  He  will  be 
IS  anxious  to  eradicate  Avhat  is  bad  as  to 
preserve  what  is  good  ;  but  he  will  be  pro- 
foundly sensible  of  the  delicacy  and  extreme 
difficulty  of  the  task.  While  he  does  not 
discourage  the  spirit  of  improvement,  he 
■will  labour  to  inspire  men  with  a  proper 
sense  of  their  present  advantages ;  and  he 
will  warn  them,  lest  they  touch  with  rash 
and  violent  hand,  institutions  which  have 
become  incorporated  with  the  very  exist- 
ence of  civil  society. 

Property  exerts  its  benign  influence  on 
mdividuals  and  nations,  only  in  proportion 
as  it  becomes  invested  in  the  popular  mind, 
as  well  as  by  the  letter  of  the  law,  with  a 
complete  sacredness.  In  preserving  that 
sacredness,  the  labourer  has  more  interest 
even  than  the  capitalist ;  since  he  has  every- 
thing yet  to  acquire,  and  his  gains  can  have 


INTRODUCTiq\.  Ki 

no  security  if  the  right  which  a  rr,«n  hns  to 
the  fruits  of  his  industry,  sagacity,  and  fru- 
gality be  not  acknowledged  and  respected. 
"  Good  order,"  says  that  philosopher  and 
statesman  of  the  last  century  on  whom  the 
mantle  of  Bacon  fell,  "  good  order  is  the 
foundation  of  all  good  things.  To  be  ena- 
bled to  acquire,  the  people,  without  being 
servile,  must  have  reverence  for  the  laws. 
They  must  labour  to  obtain  Avhat  by  labour 
can  be  obtained  ;  and  when  they  find  the 
success  disproportioned  to  the  endeavour, 
they  must  be  taught  their  consolation  in  the 
final  proportions  of  eternal  justice.  Of  this 
consolation,  whoever  deprives  them  dead- 
ens their  industry,  and  strikes  at  the  root  of 
all  acquisition,  as  of  all  conservation.  He 
that  does  this  is  the  cruel  oppressor,  the 
merciless  enemy  of  the  poor  and  wretched  ; 
at  the  same  time  that  by  his  wicked  specu- 
lations he  exposes  the  fruits  of  successful 
mdustry  and  the  accumulations  of  fortune 
to  the  plunder  of  the  negligent,  the  disap- 
pointed, and  the  unprosperous."* 

*  Burke's  ReflectiDns  on  tlie  French  Revolution. 

A 


X'.-  :';         .  .  : inxh;oi?uction. 

.*.  •  In: the -pfDgi;es3  q{  le'j^islation  on  this  sub- 
ject," it 'iVedrlifsniy-t'o  be  hoped  that  the 
spirit  of  liberality  and  of  moderation  may 
both  be  cultivated.  Dark  and  ominous  will 
be  the  day  which  finds  "  the  leaders  in  the 
work  choosing,"  to  borrow  the  words  of 
the  same  great  master,  "  to  make  them- 
selves bidders  at  an  auction  of  popularity. 
They  will  then  become  flatterers  instead  of 
legislators.  If  any  of  them  should  happen 
to  propose  a  scheme,  soberly  limited  and 
defended  with  proper  qualifications,  he  will 
be  immediately  outbid  by  his  competitors, 
who  will  produce  something  more  splendid- 
ly popular.  Suspicions  will  be  raised  of  his 
fidelity  to  his  cause.  Moderation  will  be 
stigmatized  as  the  virtue  of  cowards,  and 
compromise  as  the  prudence  of  traitors  ; 
until,  in  hopes  of  preserving  the  credit  which 
may  enable  him  to  moderate  on  some  oc- 
casions, the  popular  leader  is  obliged  to  be- 
come active  in  propagating  doctrines  and 
establishing  powers  that  will  ultimately  de- 
feat any  sober  purpose  at  which  he  ulti- 
mately might  have  aimed." 


INTRODUCTION.  XI 

It  is  worthy  of  remark,  however,  that,  for 
most  of  the  prevailing  inequalities  in  prop- 
erty, which  admit  of  remedy,  legislation  can 
do  little.  To  expect  too  much  of  govern- 
ments, and  too  little  from  individual  and 
social  efforts,  has  always  been  the  error  of 
mankind,  and  it  is  one  to  which  we  are  pe- 
culiarly liable  at  present.  Political  inter- 
ests are  now  so  predominant,  and  so  much 
has  been  gained  within  the  last  century 
throughout  the  world  by  political  changes, 
that  it  is  by  no  means  surprising  that  men 
should  be  tempted  to  think  that  everything 
depends  on  the  course  of  law  and  of  admin- 
istration. We  forget  the  multitude  of  in- 
terests with  which  law  can  never  interfere 
without  doing  harm ;  nor  do  we  consider 
that  even  when  great  revolutions  are  desira- 
ble, a  fundamental  change  of  law,  to  be 
effective,  must  be  preceded  by  a  change 
in  the  habits  and  opinions  of  the  people. 
Quid  leges  sine  moribus  ? 

Take,  for  instance,  one  of  those  causes 
which  tend  most  powerfully  to  disturb  the 
equal  distribution  of  property  —  intemper- 


Xll  INTRODUCTION. 

ance.  The  drinking  usages  -svhich  prevail 
among  us  cause  an  immense  amount  of 
drunkenness ;  and  drunkenness,  as  is  well 
known,  occasions  four  out  of  five  parts  of 
all  our  pauperism.  But  is  this  pauperism  to 
be  cured  by  any  legislation  about  property, 
or  even  about  intemperance  ?  Let  us  sup- 
pose that  the  entire  capital  of  the  country 
were  taken  from  its  present  proprietors  and 
thrown  into  one  common  fund  ;  that  it  were 
then  redistributed  in  equal  portions  to  all 
the  people,  and  that  the  most  stringent 
laws  were  passed  to  prevent  unequal  accu- 
mulation !  If  intemperance  continues  to 
prevail,  not  ten  years  would  elapse  before 
most  of  the  families  afflicted  by  this  vice 
would  become  destitute,  and  their  shares  of 
the  original  fund  would  be  found  in  the 
hands  of  their  frugal  and  industrious  neigh- 
bours. Absolute  equality  can,  of  course, 
exist  nowhere  but  in  the  dreams  of  the 
Utopian  politician  or  philanthropist ;  and  so 
long  as  labour,  economy,  and  sobriety  are 
conditions  (as  evidently  they  should  be)  for 
getting    or  retaining  wealth,    so   long  w.>W 


INTRODUCTION.  XIH 

the  idle,  improvident,  and  intemperate  be 
doomed  vo  poverty.  To  remedy  such  pov- 
erty, we  must  begin  with  its  causes. 

But  what  is  the  appropriate  remedy  for 
those  causes  ?  Is  idleness  to  be  cured  by 
legislation  ?  Let  the  laws  prevalent  in  Eu- 
rope for  several  centuries  respecting  the 
wages  and  hours  of  labour,  and  the  subsist- 
ence of  labourers  and  vagrants,  answer  the 
question.  Let  the  history  of  sumptuary 
laws,  again,  teach  how  far  governments 
can  force  economy  and  providence  on  a 
people.  The  experiments  which  have  been 
made  by  legislators  in  regard  *o  intemper- 
ance have  been  attended  by  the  same  re- 
sult. For  ages  they  attempted  at  one  time 
to  regulate,  at  another  to  prohibit ;  but,  in 
spite  of  all  the  terrors  of  penalties  and  pros- 
ecutions, the  desolating  vice  still  kept  on  its 
way,  till  men  like  Theobald  Mathew  ap- 
pealed from  law  to  reason  and  moral  senti- 
ment, and  free  associations  were  formed 
to  withstand  the  tyranny  of  p'^rnieious  cus- 
toms. We  all  know  the  isso  of  that  ap- 
peal.     It   should    impress   deeply    on    our 


XIV  INTRODUCTION. 

minds  the  great  truth  so  forcibly  suggested 
by  many  events  of  our  time,  that  a  remedy 
for  some  of  our  greatest  evils  is  to  be  found 
in  social  rather  than  ■political  action  ;  that 
law  can  do  comparatively  little  in  achieving 
those  benignant  reforms,  which  must  be 
gradual  in  order  to  be  safe,  and  which  will 
win  their  way  by  persuasion  and  example 
to  a  peaceful  and  enduring  triumph,  when 
force  would  only  rouse  resistance,  or  com- 
pel the  form  without  the  spirit  of  submission. 
"  It  is  not  in  our  stars"  nor  in  our  laws 
•'that  we  are  underlings."  I  am  far  from 
"wishing  to  underrate  the  vast  influence  of 
governments,  over  the  condition  and  des- 
tiny of  individuals.  I  well  know  that  a  bad- 
ly constituted  or  badly  administered  system 
may  paralyze  the  best  energies  of  any  peo- 
ple. Still  it  must  be  conceded  that,  under 
a  system  like  ours,  conceived  and  matured 
in  the  spirit  of  the  largest  liberty,  a  system 
to  which  we  are  proud  to  ascribe  the  pre- 
eminent blessings  we  enjoy,  and  by  whose 
fostering  care  such  multitudes  have  been 
conducted  from  penury  to  comfort,  and  even 


INTRODUCTION.  XV 

to  opulence,  our  first  reliance  should  be 
upon  ourselves.  "  It  is  not  by  levelling 
property,  but  by  moderating  passion,"  says 
Aristotle,  '•  that  we  shall  best  attain  that 
mediocrity  which  ought  to  be  the  aim  of 
legislation."*  That  people  who  labour  to 
ensure  subsistence  by  industry,  and  who,  at 
the  same  time,  cultivate  habits  of  modera- 
tion and  self-command,  can  never  long 
want,  in  a  country  like  ours,  the  benefit  of 
equal  laws.  Indeed,  in  this  age,  not  even 
bad  governments  can  long  withstand  the  de- 
mands, if  reasonable,  of  a  frugal,  industri- 
ous, and  virtuous  people.  So  long  as  the 
population  of  Ireland  remained  debased  and 
idle,  so  long  they  suffered  under  the  opera- 
tion of  invidious  and  disqualifying  legisla- 
tion. J3ut  no  sooner  did  industry  begin  to 
emancipate  them  from  their  abject  state, 
than  the  work  of  political  regeneration  com- 
menced ;  and  should  the  change  which  has 
recently  passed,  as  if  by  magic,  over  their 
moral  condition  prove  permanent,  there  can 

•  See  on  this  subject  Aristotle's  Politics,  ii.,  5 


Xn  INTRODUCTION. 

be  litllc  doubt  that  that  regoneration   will 
soon  be  consummated. 

In  thus  urging  individual  and  social  im- 
provement in  place  of  political  reforms,  it 
may  be  proper  to  guard  against  mistake. 
This  is  not  recommended  as  an  expedient 
which  will  replace  legislation,  or  whoUy 
supersede  it,  but  as  a  means  by  which  it 
can  be  rendered  safe  and  salutary.  It  must 
not  be  forgotten  that  legislation  may  err  on 
the  side  of  omission  as  well  as  on  the  side 
of  excess,  and  may  do  even  more  evil  by 
removing  venerable  landmarks  than  by  cre- 
ating new  and  unnecessary  barriers  and  re- 
strictions. It  is  against  this  error  that  we 
are  called  to  guard  now.  In  receding  from 
the  arbitrary  and  intermeddling  policy  of 
former  ages,  governments  are  liable  lo  pass 
to  the  opposite  extreme.  They  are  urged 
to  this  not  only  by  the  desire  of  change 
among  the  people,  but  also  by  the  prevail- 
ing spirit  of  philosophy.  They  are  now 
taught,  and  wisely  loo,  that  they  should  sub- 
stitute confidence  and  conciliation  for  the 
distrust  and  suspicion  with  which  they  have 


INTRODUCTION.  XVU 

too  long  regarded  mankind ;  that  our  race 
IS  moved  by  sentiments  liigher  than  fear  ; 
and  that  an  appeal  to  these  sentiments  will 
furnish  means  at  once  the  most  appropriate 
and  the  most  effectual  to  control  it.  Had 
these  truths  been  learned,  as  they  should 
have  been  ages  ago,  in  the  school  of  Chris- 
tianity, they  would  there  have  been  so  qual- 
ified with  just  views  of  man's  frailty  and 
corruption,  such  lessons  would  have  been 
inculcated  of  the  majesty  and  supremacy  ot 
law,  and  such  salutary  terrors  inspired  by 
the  revelations  of  a  coming  judgment,  that 
nothing  but  unmixed  good  Avould  have  re- 
sulted from  their  application  to  human  af- 
fairs. 

But,  unhappily  for  mankind,  the  first  apos- 
tles of  philanthropy  were  men  who  scorned 
to  be  instructed  by  One  who  came  out  of 
Nazareth.  They  inculcated  the  most  un- 
bounded confidence  in  the  sagacity  and  suf- 
ficiency of  man's  native  instincts,  and  bade 
him  go  forward  without  fear  in  the  task 
of  renovating  society.     The  rhapsodies  of 

Rousseau,  in  which  he  celebrates  the  supe- 
B 


XVlll  INTRODUCTION. 

riority  of  savage  over  civilized  life,  and  in- 
vokes the  reign  of  sentiment  in  place  of  an- 
cient institutions  and  the  "  coarser  ties  of 
human  law,"  these  afford  but  an  exaggera- 
ted specimen  of  a  philosophy  which  circu- 
lated during  the  last  century  in  almost  all 
the  schools  of  Europe.  It  was  reproduced 
not  alone  in  the  coarse  versions  of  Godwin, 
and  of  those  who,  like  him,  frown  on  all 
the  restraints  of  law  as  inconsistent  with 
"  that  increasing  perfection  which  is  the 
only  salubrious  element  of  mind."  We  see 
much  of  it,  though  greatly  chastened  and 
animated  by  a  spirit  altogether  more  ra- 
tional and  more  truly  generous,  in  the  spec- 
ulations of  political  economists.  Sickened 
and  wearied  with  the  view  of  almost  end- 
less restrictions,  which  for  ages  had  fettered 
trade  and  industry,  they  seem  to  have  con- 
cluded that  restraint  was  all  that  man  had 
to  dread,  and  that  entire  freedom  Avould  be 
synonymous  Avith  entire  prosperity.  They 
appear  to  have  sometimes  forgotten  that  la- 
bour itself  could  not  be  free  unless  it  were 
secured  against  wrong,  and  that  this  secu- 


INTRODUCTIOX.  XlX 

nty,  as  it  implies  a  restraint  operating  on  all. 
would  be  a  check  on  the  labourer's  oun 
passions.  If  they  did  not  overlook,  they 
neglected  to  enforce  with  sufficient  frequen- 
cy and  emphasis,  the  truth  which  cannot  be 
too  often  repeated,  that  order  is  tlie  most  es- 
sential element  of  liberty ;  that  such  order 
cannot  exist  without  obedience  to  law  ;  and 
that  law  cannot  be  obeyed  unless  men  cul- 
tivate habits  of  self-control,  and  impose  re- 
straint on  the  very  sentiments  which  impel 
them  to  industry  and  thrift. 

But  it  is  time  to  bring  these  remarks  to  a 
close.  It  will  be  found  that  in  these  Es- 
says the  author  has  taken  a  judicious  mean 
between  those  who  would  hedge  property 
about  with  needless  safeguards  and  those 
who  would  leave  it  without  protection.  He 
is  the  advocate  of  an  enlightened  freedom  ; 
a  freedom  tempered  only  by  such  restraints 
as  are  indispensable  to  its  own  preservation, 
and  inseparable  from  the  present  lot  of  hu- 
manity. He  has  endeavoured  to  unfold 
some  of  the  purposes  with  which  a  benefi- 
cent Creator  has  assigned  to  man  an  earthly 


XX  INTRODUCTION. 

inheritance  of  labour  and  care.  He  shows 
how  the  welfare  of  the  whole  human  family 
is  identified  with  the  savings  of  economy, 
or,  in  other  words,  with  the  accumulation 
of  capital ;  and  how  deeply  the  labourer  is 
interested  in  sustaining  those  laws  which 
protect  each  man  in  the  enjoyment  of  his 
earnings,  and  of  the  earnings  of  his  parents 
or  benefactors.  He  points  out  the  wisdom 
of  that  beautiful  provision  by  which  God 
has  connected  the  progress  of  our  race  with 
the  humble  labours  of  industry ;  and  how 
far  such  labours  are  from  degrading  the  in- 
dividual who  pursues  them,  or  from  diffu- 
sing through  society  a  sordid  or  unworthy 
spirit.  Such  lessons  arc  always  seasonable. 
In  this  age,  pre-eminently  devoted  to  indus- 
trious enterprise  and  accumulating  wealth 
with  unparalleled  rapidity,  they  are  especi- 
ally needed,  and  it  is  much  to  be  desired 
that  they  may  be  widely  circulated. 

A.  P. 

Union  College,  September  lUth,  1841. 


PROPER TV  AND    LABOUR 


The  subject  of  property  and  labour  is  one 
of  great  extent,  and  in  all  its  details  of  such 
moment  to  human  society,  that  it  would  be 
impossible  even  merely  to  allude  in  these 
essays  to  every  important  point  connected 
with  it.  It  will  be  more  serviceable  to 
those  readers  who  may  not  have  deeply  re- 
flected upon  it,  if  they  should  find  some 
truths  of  elementary  and  extensive  impor- 
tance clearly  portrayed,  and  should  be  led 
by  them  to  a  deeper  consideration  of  the 
general  subject  than  could  be  induced  by  a 
more  comprehensive  yet  hasty  sketch. 

Every  man  who  enjoys  an  active  share  in 
the  government  of  his  country  is  bound  to 
endeavour,  as  far  as  lies  in  his  power,  to 
make  himself  acquainted  with  the  elements 
of  the  society  in  which  he  lives ;  and  of 
these  elements  the  institutions  of  property 
and  marriage  are  the  two  most  essential. 


16  PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR. 

Property  and  marriage  have  been  at  all 
periods  the  two  most  powerful  institutions 
to  calm,  protect,  and  improve  mankind. 
The  family,  which  can  exist  only  where  the 
institution  of  marriage  exists  as  an  exclusive 
and  permanent  connexion  of  the  sexes,  has 
been,  and  will  continue  to  be,  through  all 
ages,  the  true  "  nursery  of  the  common- 
wealth ;"  and  property,  Avhich  induces  man 
to  start  on  the  career  of  industry  and  ex- 
change, has  also  been  through  all  periods  the 
firm  foundation  for  peace.  Notwithstanding 
the  contention  and  crime  to  which  property 
often  leads,  and  the  misery  which  matrimo- 
ny sometimes  entails,  the  one  is  still  the  great 
source  of  peace,  the  other  of  kind  affections 
and  happiness ;  and  both  are  fountains  of 
industry,  of  morality,  love  of  kind  and  coun- 
try, and  of  generous  impulses.  "  These 
two  great  institutions  convert  the  selfish,  as 
well  as  the  social,  passions  of  our  nature 
into  the  firmest  bands  of  a  peaceable  and 
orderly  intercourse ;  they  change  the  sour- 
ces of  discord  into  principles  of  quiet ;  they 
discipline  the  most  ungovernable  ;  they  re- 


PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR.  17 

fine  the  grossest,  and  they  exalt  the  most 
sordid  propensities ;  so  that  they  become 
the  perpetual  fountain  of  all  that  strength- 
ens, and  preserves,  and  adorns  society ; 
they  sustain  the  individual,  and  they  per- 
petuate the  race.  Around  these  institutions 
all  pur  social  duties  will  be  found,  at  various 
distances,  to  range  themselves ;  some  more 
near,  obviously  essential  to  the  good  order 
of  human  life ;  others  more  remote,  and  of 
which  the  necessity  is  not,  at  first  view,  so 
apparent ;  and  some  so  distant  that  their 
importance  has  been  sometimes  doubted, 
though,  upon  more  mature  consideration, 
they  will  be  found  to  be  outposts  and  ad- 
vance-guards of  these  fundamental  princi- 
ples ;  that  man  should  securely  enjoy  the 
fruits  of  his  labour,  and  that  the  society  of 
the  sexes  should  be  so  wisely  ordered  as  to 
make  it  a  school  of  the  kind  affections,  and 
a  fit  nursery  for  the  commonwealth.'" 

Eloquent  as  these  lines  are,  they  are  not 
more  so  than   numerous  passages   on   the 
game  subject  in  the  ancient  poets  and  prose 
*  Mackintosh,  Disc,  on  the  Law  of  Nature  and  Nations. 


18  PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR. 

writers.  Indeed,  we  find  that  man,  in 
whatever  period  or  country,  so  that  he  have 
arrived  at  that  degree  of  maturity  which 
calls  on  him  to  reflect  upon  the  component 
elements  of  human  society,  discovers  and 
amply  acknowledges  property  and  marriage 
as  the  two  main  stays  of  social  life,  and  the 
two  most  active  agents  in  civilizing  the  hu- 
man race.  The  Greeks,  and  before  them 
the  Egyptians  and  Hindoos,  together  with 
the  Chinese,  prove  the  same  fact,  which  is 
evinced  by  the  history  of  civilization  in 
modem  Europe. 

It  is  natural,  therefore,  that  at  all  periods 
when  peculiar  attention  is  directed  to  an 
inquiry  into  the  elements  of  society,  these 
institutions,  too,  should  become  the  subjects 
of  renewed  discussion.  Our  own  period 
does  not  make  an  exception  ;  for,  if  the 
subject  of  marriage  is  less  discussed  than 
that  of  property  with  reference  to  its  practi- 
cal importance,  it  is  owing,  not  to  the  want 
of  importance  attached  to  it,  but,  on  ihe 
contrary,  because  the  Western  World — all 
Europe,  with  her  many  descendant  nations 


PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR.  19 

—acknowledge,  with  one  voice,  not  only- 
marriage,  but  monogamy,  to  be  of  the  last 
importance  for  the  cause  of  human  advance- 
ment. 

That  the  Western  World  thus  highly  dis- 
tinguishes the  institution  of  monogamy  Avith 
one  voice,  is  not  using  an  extravagant  term, 
because  those  writers  who  have  attempted 
to  break  in  upon  this  ancient  and  indispen- 
sable institution  excite  our  contempt  for 
their  shallowness,  and  our  disgust  at  their 
low  sensuality,  and  are,  withal,  very  few  in 
number,  compared  with  the  multitude  who 
have  held  a  different  opinion.  The  theory 
of  these  few  stands  contradicted  on  every 
page  of  history  by  the  laws  and  existing  in- 
stitutions of  generations  after  generations.' 

'  It  is  a  fact  which  deserves  attention,  that,  on  the  one 
hand,  none  of  those  writers,  to  have  produced  whona  is  tho 
melancholy  distinction  of  our  own  times,  recommend  polyg- 
amy; but-if  they  attack  the  sanctuary  of  monogamy,  they 
do  it  either  in  demanding  promiscuous  intercourse,  or  exclu- 
sive intercourse  for  a  limited  time  ;  and  that,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  most  distinguished  moralists  of  the  East  strongly 
recommend  monogamy.  Thus,  to  give  but  one  instance,  the 
most  esteemed  ethical  work  of  Middle  Asia,  called  Akhlak-I> 


20  PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR. 

The  whole  subject  of  marriage  is  a  sim- 
ple one.  Property,  however,  although  not 
less  universally  acknowledged  by  man,  is 
necessarily  subject  to  far  more  modifica- 
tions.    These,  and  the  fact  of  its  enduring 

Jalaly,  says,  section  iii.  of  book  ii.  :  "Excepting,  indeed,  the 
case  of  kings,  who  marry  to  multiply  offspring,  and  towards 
whom  the  wife  has  no  alternative  but  obedience,  plurality  of 
wives  is  not  defensible.  Even  in  their  case  it  were  better  to 
be  cautious  ;  for  husband  and  wife  are  like  heart  and  body, 
and  like  as  one  heart  cannot  supply  life  to  two  bodies,  one 
man  can  hardly  provide  for  the  management  of  two  homes." 
Translated  by  W.  F.  Thompson,  of  the  Bengal  service,  for 
the  Oriental  Translation  Fund,  London,  1839,  page  266.  This 
singularly  confirms  some  views  taken  in  the  Political  Ethics 
on  the  subject.  When  the  author  stated  ihem  he  was  not 
yet  acquainted  with  this  passage.  GutzlaS",  in  his  China 
Opened,  states  pretty  much  the  same  in  regard  to  that  vast 
empire.  In  saying  that  certain  disgusting  views,  boldly  avow- 
ed, form  a  melancholy  distinction  of  our  times,  I  am  well 
aware  that  on  many  previous  occasions  religious  fanatics,  both 
catholic  and  protestant,  have  impiously  preached  and  practis- 
ed "  intercourse  of  the  faithful  not  subject  to  the  fetters  of  the 
law ;"  but  they  were  at  least  religious  fanatics  or  designing 
criminals,  who  merely  used  this  cloak  of  fanaticism.  In  our 
times  we  find  writers  and  lecturers  who  are  so  degraded  that 
they  speak  of  man's  offspring  with  a  loathsomely  calculating 
indifference,  as  fishermen  would  speak  of  the  spawn  of  their 
oysters,  and  who  dare  to  hold  up  their  doctrine  as  the  height 
of  philanthropy. 


PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR.  21 

beyond  the  life  of  man,  lead  to  a  greater 
variety  of  reflections,  not  only  upon  these 
modifications,  but  also  upon  the  whole  char- 
acter, essence,  and  origin  of  property ;  nor 
is  it  possible  to  give  any  connected  view  of 
the  rights  and  obligations  of  man,  or  of  his 
social,  and  especially  of  his  political  exist- 
ence, without  largely  treating  of  the  subject 
of  property.  An  age  like  ours,  which,  among 
other  peculiar  features,  is  very  strongly 
marked  by  a  political  character,  could  not 
fail  to  produce  many  arguments  and  theo- 
ries upon  this  subject. 

If  we  take,  from  the  highest  point  of  view, 
a  survey  of  the  whole  history  of  civilization, 
we  shall  find  that  its  two  great  divisions  are 
Asiatic  and  European  civilization;  the  one 
fixing,  and  often  immuring,  all  knowledge, 
rights,  relations,  and  even  the  intercourse 
and  exchange  among  men  by  means  of  un- 
alterable religious  dogmas  ;'  the  other  char- 

•  The  three  Asiatic  religions  which  count  most  votaries, 
iie  religion  of  Bramah,  Buduh,  and  Mohammed,  especially 
ttbs  two  first,  unalterably  fix  almost  all  branches  of  science, 
astronomy,  geography,  and  natural  philosophy,  no  less  so  than 


22  PROPERTY  .AND    LABOUR. 

acterized  by  criticism,  by  boundless,  often 
restless  inquiry.  It  fairly  began  with  th«"- 
Greek  historian  Thucydides,  and,  in  general, 
forms  the  essential  difference  in  the  charac- 
ter of  Grecian  science  and  that  of  contem- 
poraneous Asiatic  nations. 

civil  and  political  relations,  weights,  measures,  and  interest  of 
money  ;  so  that  it  becomes  impossible  for  a  follower  of  Bu- 
duh,  for  instance,  to  adopt  more  rational  views  or  correct 
knowledge,  without,  according  to  his  belief,  impiously  aban- 
doning the  doctrine  of  his  sacred  writings.  The  blessing  of 
perfect  liberty,  granted  to  us  in  this  respect  by  the  absence 
of  political  and  scientific  discussions  or  axioms  in  the  New 
Testament,  is  not  sufficiently  valued  by  those  who  attempt  to 
use  the  bible  in  order  to  settle  questions  belonging  to  these 
branches  of  knowledge.  So  decided  is  the  dogmatic  charac- 
ter of  the  Asiatics,  that  even  the  Chinese,  the  least  religiously- 
disposed  people  on  earth,  consider  their  so-called  classic  wri- 
ters as  forestalling  all  inquiry.  "What  they  have  said  on 
morals,  politics,  natural  history,  physics,  medicine,  geography, 
and  architecture,  style  of  writing  and  poetry,  is  unalterable 
law,  a  fixed  dogma  to  the  vast  Chinese  population  ;  and  if,  in 
other  countries  of  the  East,  the  inquirer  endangers  his  reli- 
gious welfare,  he  becomes  in  China  a  presumptuous  innovator, 
guilty  of  the  heinous  offence  of  wantmg  in  filial  piety  to  his 
ancestors.  Mr.  Gutzlaff  shows  this  very  abundantly  in  the 
work  cited  in  the  preceding  note.  It  gives,  so  far  as  I  know, 
the  most  thorough  and  detailed  account  of  that  remarkable 
nation. 


PROPERTY    AXD    LABOUR.  23 

There  have  been  periods  in  the  history  of 
Europe,  indeed,  in  which  the  inquiring  spir- 
it of  the  Western  race  was  greatly  fettered 
by  the  dogmas  imposed  upon  it  by  an  exten- 
sive system  of  theology,  and  a  philosophy 
closely  interlinked  with  it  ;  but  the  Euro- 
pean mind  has  always  resumed  its  free  in- 
quiry, especially  so  after  the  restoration  of 
learning  and  the  reformation  of  religion. 

Since  these  two  great  events  have  exer- 
cised their  powerful  influence  upon  the  great 
family  of  Western  nations,  a  boldness  and 
activity  have  been  imparted  to  the  inquiring 
mind,  and  the  extent  of  research  has  been 
widened  in  such  a  degree,  that  men  have 
sometimes  fallen  into  the  extreme  opposite 
to  that  of  the  spellbound  Asiatic.  Men 
have  at  times  forgotten  the  continuity  of 
mankind,  of  society,  and  civilization ;  they 
have  hastily  reasoned  from  doubtful,  and  oft- 
en arbitrary  abstract  principles  in  spheres, 
in  which  sound  reasoning  can  consist  in  a 
shrewd  and  cautious  investigation  of  expe- 
rience only ;  and  in  morals  as  well  as  in 
politics,  they  have  not  unfrequently  substitu 


24  PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR. 

ted  an  opinion  rashly  formed  and  vehement- 
ly maintained  for  those  rules  which  can  be 
safe  and  unalterable  only  if  they  are  the 
joint  result  of  calm  and  impartial  reflection 
upon  the  feelings  and  irresistible  impulses 
of  man,  manifested  in  the  transactions  of 
life  and  the  institutions  grown  up  out  of 
them,  and  upon  the  accumulated  and  im- 
bodied  experience  of  mankind.  The  dis- 
cussions on  the  subject  of  property  have 
not  remained  free  from  these  evils,  which 
have  been  the  greater,  because  many  mod- 
ern Avriters,  most  distinguished  for  extrav- 
agant theories,  have  been  able  to  plead  in 
their  favour,  with  some  degree  of  plausibil- 
ity, the  opinions  or  principles  incautious- 
ly advanced  by  others,  who  nevertheless 
maintained,  upon  the  whole,  the  very  oppo- 
site system.' 

The  first  rencAved  discussions  upon  prop- 
erty took  place  at  a  time  when  it  was  a  com- 
mon error,  probably  unavoidable  at  that  pe- 

'  The  principles  on  property  exp'essed  by  Paley  have  been 
used  to  support  extravagant  and  ruinous  theories,  which  are 
the  opposite  to  that  which  he  wished  to  demoastiate. 


PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR.  25 

riod,  to  ascribe  things,  which  we  now  ob- 
serve before  us  in  a  definite  and  systematic 
stale  of  existence,  to  as  definite  and  well- 
planned  an  origin,  effected  by  distinct  re- 
flection and  conscious  will — in  short,  to  in- 
vention, almost  as  clear  and  as  well  guided 
by  a  collected  judgment  as  we  know  the 
mental  process  to  have  been  which  resulted 
in  the  invention  of  some  complicated  ma- 
chines, or  the  ingenious  removal  of  some 
disturbing  action.  The  invention  of  lan- 
guages, governments,  property,  and  even 
of  the  fine  arts,  was  spoken  of  in  this  sense 
of  the  word.  We  thus  read  of  the  agree- 
ments of  men  to  establish  governments ; 
of  their  convention  to  use  certain  sounds 
for  certain  ideas  ;  or  of  their  resolving  to 
use  the  precious  metals  as  coins  and  meas- 
urements of  value.  In  many  cases  in  which 
it  was  absolutely  impossible  to  refer  a  com- 
mon usage  or  a  prevailing  idea  of  justice, 
imbodied  in  a  universal  law,  to  a  definite 
pact,  a  tacit  contract  was  at  least  supposed 
as  their  original  starting  point.  A  great 
writer,  whom  civilized  mankind  will  always 
C 


26 


PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR. 


return  to  consider  as  one  of  their  true 
benefactors,  whatever  it  was  lately  the  fash- 
ion to  say  in  derogation  of  him,'  even  he 
could  not  wholly  free  himself  of  this  view, 
which  the  advanced  state  of  knowledge 
and  the  deeper  research  of  modern  times 
teach  us  to  be  untenable.  He  speaks, 
in  his  immortal  work,  "  of  the  intention  of 
those  who  first  introduced  private  property," 
and  says  that  "  it  is  but  reasonable  to  sup- 
pose that,  in  making  this  introduction  of 
property,  they  would  as  little  as  possible  de- 
viate from  the  original  principles  of  natural 
equity." 

History,  however,  shows  us  no  such  ori- 
ginal introduction  of  property.  The  idea 
of  property  was  not  conceived  in  the  human 
mind  in  reasoning  upon  certain  existing 
evils  or  expected  advantages,  as  in  some 
instances,  indeed,  the  government  of  coun- 
tries has  been  changed  in  consequence  of 
deliberation  upon  existing  and  pressing  cir- 

'  Hugo  Grotius,  in  his  work  on  the  Rights  of  Vv'ar  a.rA 
Peace.  The  student  will  remember  likewise  Paley's  passage 
on  property. 


PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR.  27 

cumstaiices,  or  as  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  was  adopted  after  protracted 
discussion.' 

The  thing  was  before  the  word  ;  the 
word  before  reflection  upon  its  meaning, 
extent,  and  usefulness.  Upon  inquiry,  we 
shall  find  that  private  property  exists  many 
centuries,  probably  thousands  of  years,  bc- 

'  The  framers  of  our  Constitution  made  and  adopted  this 
instrument,  indeed  ;  but,  although  we  are  able  to  refer  its  in- 
troduction to  a  definite  day  and  hour,  we  must  guard  our- 
selves against  considering  even  this  act  an  invention.  Be- 
sides that  it  is  founded  upon  the  bulk  of  the  English  Common 
Law,  nearly  all  its  essential  features  are  either  directly  adopted 
from  the  British  Bill  of  Rights,  the  Act  of  Settlement,  and 
the  British  Constitution,  or  are  modifications,  improvements, 
or  expansions  of  inherited  principles.  It  is  for  this  reason 
that  its  framers  produced  a  living  thing,  taking  root  at  once 
in  the  practical  life  of  the  people.  Had  they  acted  otherwise, 
we  would  now  read  of  their  instrument  as  we  do  of  a  consti- 
tution of  Herault  de  Sechellcs,  and  several  others  produced  in 
the  convulsions  of  the  first  French  revolution.  The  lawgiv- 
ers of  antiquity,  the  Lycurguses,  the  Solons,  did  not  invent; 
they  did  not  spin  the  thread  of  their  political  systems  out  of 
themselves  as  the  silkworm  weaves  its  thread  from  out  it- 
self; they  collected,  simplified,  digested,  modified,  and  im- 
proved the  common  law  of  their  land  or  tribe;  and  more  no 
legislator  can  do,  if  he  means  to  produce  that  which  shall  bo 
useful  and  lasting,  and  has  the  breath  of  life. 


28  PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR. 

fore  men  began  to  reflect  upon  its  origin 
its  fairness  and  utility;  and  that  those  among 
whom  it  introduced  itself,  or  with  whom 
it  grew  up,  had  no  conscious  intention  of 
bringing  it  about,  nor  any  clear  concep- 
tion of  the  many  effects  which  might  re- 
sult from  it.  Neither  did  they  reason  upon  the 
right  by  which  they  held  it,  any  more  than 
the  daring  fisherman  does  now,  who  sails  in 
his  craft  to  the  Banks  of  Newfoundland  to 
catch  the  unappropriated  fish  of  the  sea,  but 
who  feels  his  right  very  strongly  so  soon  as 
any  one  attempts  to  dispossess  him  of  the 
well-earned  produce  of  his  labour  and  dan- 
ger. The  origin  of  property  can  be  refer- 
red to  no  fixed  point  of  time.  It  grew  up 
with  man,  as  language,  as  government  did. 
It  was  the  necessary  and  unavoidable  ef- 
fect of  his  physical  and  moral  nature.  The 
two  first  human  beings  could  not  but  feel 
the  import  of  Mine  and  Thine.' 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  an  error  not  less 
common  at  present  to  ascribe  everything,  the 

'  I  must  here  refer  the  reader  to  my  Political  Ethics,  where 
I  have  enlarged  upon  this  point. 


PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR.  29 

commencement  of  which  we  are  unable  to 
refer  to  a  distinct  act  of  reflection  and  con- 
scious will — to  a  barbarous  origin,  and  to 
infer  that  we  have,  for  that  reason  alone, 
the  right  or  even  the  duty  to  refashion  or  de- 
stroy it.  A  power  of  comprehension  or 
foresight  is  thus  ascribed  to  the  mind  of  the 
individual  which  it  never  possesses  ;  the  re- 
sult of  influence  on  man's  nature,  of  things 
and  circumstances  around  him,  is  wholly 
left  out  of  consideration.  It  is  conceived 
that  civilization  dates  but  from  our  period, 
and  that  everythmg  which  does  not  accord 
with  our  systems,  classification,  and  theo- 
ries is  bad  on  that  account,  and  no  time 
ought  to  be  lost  in  changing  all  institutions 
accordingly.  The  fact  that  private  property 
has  existed  at  all  periods  with  all  nations 
from  time  immemorial,  is  considered  to  be 
rather  a  proof  of  its  viciousness  and  barbar- 
ity than  an  evidence  that  we  ought  to  view 
it  with  mature  and  cautious  reflection,  well 
weighing  whether  there  be  not  that  in  it 
which  agrees  with  our  inmost  nature  for  our 
best  interest. 


30  PROPERTY    AND    LABOLK. 

Man  acts  according  to  the  principles  of 
his  nature  from  the  beginning,  and  to  it  he 
always  returns,  if,  for  a  time,  violence,  blind- 
ness, or  fanaticism  force  him  away.  It  is  a 
living  principle  within  him,  long  before  the 
philosopher  acknowledges  it  as  a  subject  of 
consciousness  or  imbodies  it  in  a  system;  a 
principle  which  is  the  more  clearly  acknowl- 
edged and  the  more  extensively  acted  upon 
the  farther  essential  civilization  advances  ; 
and  which  it  is  one  of  the  most  important 
problems  of  the  philosopher  in  the  closet, 
and  the  lawgiver  in  the  assembly,  to  present 
clearly,  and  free  of  all  accidental  adhesion, 
so  that  it  may  the  more  purely  be  acted 
upon  in  Avider  and  wider  spheres. 

Such,  for  instance,  is  the  consciousness 
of  every  human  being,  that  he  who  lives  has 
an  original  right  to  live.  All  men  have 
ever  acted  upon  this  principle  ;  innumera- 
ble laws  silently  acknowledge  it,  yet  it  may 
not  have  been  pronounced  in  so  many 
words  for  thousands  of  years,  A  constitu- 
tion which  should  propound  this  primitive, 
indelible,  and   absolute  consciousness  in  a 


PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR.  31 

prefatory  declaration  of  rights,  would  con- 
tain something  very  useless;  and  a  Legisla- 
ture which,  upon  seeing  that  this  right  is 
nowhere  acknowledged  by  Avords,  should 
enact  a  declaration  to  that  end,  would  ren- 
der itself  ridiculous. 

A  due  appreciation  of  property,  in  so  far 
as  it  consists  in  Avealth,  has  likewise  suffer- 
ed from  the  fact  that,  before  the  truths  of 
the  science  of  political  economy  were  well 
established,  Avealth  was  pretty  generally 
considered  to  consist  in  money;  an  error 
into  which  men  easily  fell,  because  all 
wealth  and  values  are  measured  by  money. 
If  a  man  possesses  a  farm  Avorth  tAventy 
thousand  dollars,  we  say  that  he  possesses 
tAventy  thousand  dollars.  Money,  and  coin 
or  specie,  again,  are  ideas  very  much  asso- 
ciated in  the  minds  of  men  ;  and  as  it  is 
certain  that  there  exists  but  a  limited  and 
fixed  quantity  of  coin,  Avhich  cannot  be  in- 
creased at  pleasure,  it  Avas  soon  believed 
that,  just  as  much  property  as  one  person 
possesses,  so  much  Avas  taken  from  the 
others,  or  so  much  Avere  the  others  prevent- 


32  PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR. 

ed  from  possessing.  Political  econorr  v  has 
exhibited  this  fallacy,  but  the  truths  which 
this  science  develops  have  not  been  suffi 
ciently  regarded  by  those  writers  who  of 
late  have  treated  of  property,  although  it 
seems  that  without  those  truths  it  is  impos- 
sible fully  to  comprehend  its  nature. 


II. 


Property  is  that  which  we  own,  and  we 
own  a  thing  if  we  have  the  exclusive  dispo- 
sal of  it,  or  can  exclusively  use  it  for  our 
purposes  (use  or  abuse  it).  Possession, 
strictly  speaking,  means  the  mere  fact  of 
having  a  thing  in  our  power,  lawfully  or  not. 
A  thing  may  be  possessed  and  not  owned, 
as  the  thief  posseses,  for  the  time,  his  stolen 
goods ;  and  it  may  be  owned  and  not  actu- 
ally possessed,  as  the  land  which  is  rented 
for  a  number  of  years.  In  this  case  the 
owner  has  parted  with  his  right  of  posses- 
sion for  some  consideration  or  other.  The 
act  of  taking  possession  of  things  unown- 
ed, or  of  seizing  them  and  making  them  sub- 
ject to  ourselves,  with  the  intention  of  hold- 
ing them  as  property,  is  called  occupying 
them.'     Occupation  leads  to  appropriation. 

'  Occupancy  thus  involves  the  idea  of  the  presence  of  the 
occupier.     We  must  be  careful,  however,  to  attach  a  correct 


34 


PROriCUTV    AND    LAROLR. 


Property,  like  go\ernment,  shows  itself 
from  the  earliest  periods,  and  during  all 
stages  through  which  man  passes  in  his  long 
career  of  civilization  ;  first,  in  an  incipient 
and  less  defined  state,  but  more  clearly  de- 
veloped with  every  progressive  step  of  that 
■civilization  which  unfolds  the  true  nature  of 
man  as  it  gradually  advances.  Civilization 
is  man's  real  state  of  nature.  Property, 
in  this  respect,  resembles  all  those  institu- 
tions which  are  the  necessary  effects  of 
man's  natur»,  that  is,  of  his  physical  and 
mental  constitution,  and  the  objects  for 
which  he  was  created ;  effects,  such  as  mar- 
riage, the  administration  of  justice,  or,  as 
was  mentioned  above,  government  itself. 

idea  to  the  term  Presence  in  this  connexion.  Actual  physical 
presence  at  every  moment  cannot  be  me^nt,  for  this  would 
demand  physical  ubiquity,  and  in  this  sense  Iiind  could  never 
be  occupied.  We  shall  find,  therefore,  that  Presence  means 
personal  controlling  power.  Some  arguments  directed  against 
\-.'*.  'Wat  of  property  arising  out  of  occupancy,  on  the  giound 
thit  it  requires  presence,  which  is  in  many  of  the  most  im- 
portant cases  impossible,  seemed  to  require  this  explanation. 
For  a  comprehensive  discussion  on  Occupancy  the  reader  ia 
referred  to  the  articles  on  this  subject  in  the  Encyclopedia 
Americana,  to  Kent's  Commentaries,  and  also  to  the  first 
chapter  of  Story's  Comm.  on  the  Const,  of  the  U.  States. 


PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR.  35 

There  is  no  property  which  has  not  ori- 
ginated either  in  peaceable  appropriation, 
that  is,  in  making  that  our  own  which  had 
1  u  owner  before  ;  or  in  production,  that  is, 
in  bestowing  exchangeable  value  (utility  or 
desirableness)  upon  that  which  had  no  value 
before  ;  or  in  long-continued  and  undisturb- 
ed possession ;  or  in  forcible  seizure  ;  or, 
lastly,  in  acts  which  are  a  mixture  of  the 
preceding  ones.' 

Those  philosophers  who  have  maintained 
that  the  original  state  of  man,  which  they 
called  his  state  of  nature,  is  a  state  of  war, 
every  one  warring  with  every  one,  Avere  ne- 
cessarily obliged  to  consider  property  as  the 
later  invention  of  man,  or  a  thing  made  by 
government,  which  they  likewise  considered 
as  an  institution  made  by  a  distinct  and  con- 
scious act  of  men  who  had  become  tired  of 
the    previous    state    of   continued   warfare. 

■  Political  eco!iomists  have  said  that  mere  appropriation,  in 
some  cases,  bestows  value  upon  the  thing.  I  believe  there  is 
no  case  belonging  to  this  class  in  which  it  is  not  the  removal 
of  the  thing  which  gives  it  value.  But  this  discussion  seems 
to  be  unnecessary  for  our  present  inquiry. 


36  PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR. 

Unimportant  as  a  speculation  of  this  kind 
may  appear  at  first,  it  is  not  so  if  we  con- 
sider the  consequences  which  are  immedi- 
ately drawn  from  the  first  position,  that 
property  is  either  an  absolute  creature  of 
government,  or  that  all  property  originates 
in  rapine  and  violence/  But  as  love  is  be- 
fore hatred,  and  in  its  nature  lasts  longer, 
so  is  peace  before  war.  War  is  but  in- 
terrupted peace,  not  peace  suspended  war. 
To  define  peace  by  a  state  of  interrupted 
war  would  be  as  incorrect  as  to  say  that 
rightful  property,  the  exception,  is  that  which 
is  not  the  produce  of  pilfering,  the  general. 
Dispute,  quarrel,  persecution,  and  enmity 
have  a  definite  object ;  that  once  obtained, 
they  cease  ;  but  peace  and  good-will  are 
general,  and  their  own  end.  They  must 
first  be  disturbed  before  they  cease,  and  re- 
turn of  themselves  so  soon  as  the  disturb- 
ance is   at  an  end.      Peace  and  war  are 

1  That  which  we  now  behold  as  peaceably- possessed  and 
well-secured  property,  has  indeed,  at  times,  changed  owners  by 
violence  or  fraud  ;  but  this  is  an  interruption  of  peaceful 
transmission  of  property,  not  its  origin.  We  shall  recur  to 
this  subject  farther  below. 


PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR.  37 

like  health  and  fever,  like  food  and  medi- 
cine, like  calm  and  storm  ;  and  property, 
resulting  from  the  nature  of  man,  is  chiefly 
the  effect  of  peace.  Indeed,  the  idea  of 
Rightful  could  never  have  originated  out  of 
vv^ar.  If  men  declare  thai  property  acqui- 
red by  war  shall  be  rightful  property,  it  is 
necessary  that  they  should  have  acquired  the 
idea  of  rightful  property  previously,  and  in 
relations  founded  upon  right,  not  upon  mere 
violence.  All  to  which  man  could  have  el- 
evated himself  under  such  circumstances 
would  have  been  the  idea  of  bare  possession. 
We  shall  see  that  property  arises  mainly 
out  of  the  state  of  peace,  when  we  consider 
the  necessity  of  property,  the  right  of  prop- 
erty, and  the  agreement  of  property  with 
our  essential  nature. 

Necessity  of  Property. 

Man,  in  common  with  all  animals,  must 
sustain  his  body  by  nourishment,  which  is 
not  offered  to  him  as  to  the  plants,  but  he 
must  go  in  search  of  it.  Man  must  take,  ap- 
propriate the  food  he  finds ;  but,  unlike  most 


4o;s;^48 


38  PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR. 

of  the  Other  animals,  he  is  obliged,  even  in 
the  most  savage  state,  to  store  up.  He  is 
bound  to  do  this,  because,  although  in  part 
a  carnivorous  animal,  he  cannot  remain  so 
long  without  food  as  the  animals  of  prey  ;  he 
requires  a  more  regular  supply  ;  because  his 
body,  unaided  by  w^eapons  or  traps,  is  unfit 
to  obtain  for  him  animal  food  ;  he  must, 
therefore,  regularly  pursue  the  chase  at  the 
proper  time  of  the  day  and  at  the  proper 
season,  and  must  gather  stores  during  fa- 
vourable periods  for  unpropitious  times; 
and,  lastly,  because  his  children  depend 
longer  upon  him  for  food  than  the  young 
ones  of  any  animal  upon  their  parent. 

When  the  mammalia  cease  to  take  milk 
from  the  mother,  they  begin  to  shift  for  them- 
selves, and,  as  a  general  rule,  the  parental 
care  of  animals  does  not  extend  beyond  a 
season  ;  so  that,  before  the  new  litter  makes 
its  appearance,  the  preceding  brood  takes 
care  of  itself.  It  is  very  different  with  the 
human  species.  Children  require  to  be 
provided  for,  years  after  they  have  ceased 
to  be  nursed.     In  the  mean  time,  successive 


PUOI'KRTV    AXD    LABOUR.  39 

children  are  born,  and  the  female  parent  is 
prevented  from  obtaining  food  by  the  neces- 
sary care  which  the  young  ones  require.'  In 
short,  man  must  provide  for  his  family,  Avhich 

■  Lord  Karnes,  in  his  Law  Tract  on  Property,  mentions  al- 
ready that  "  Man,  by  the  frame  of  his  body,  is  unqualified  to 
be  an  animal  of  prey."  The  travellers  to  the  Polar  Regions, 
for  instance  Captain  Ross,  inform  us  of  the  enormous  power  of 
swallowing,  and  the  capacity  of  sustaitiiiig  liunger,  which  the 
inhabitants  of  those  unhappy  regions  acquire,  from  being  most 
irregularly  supplied  with  food.  Yet  even  this  does  not  equal 
the  power  of  many  animals  of  prey  ;  and  in  how  wretched  a 
condition  are  those  people  ! 

There  seems  to  be  a  general  law  pervading  the  animal 
world,  that  the  higher  the  animal  stands  in  the  scale  of  cre- 
ation, the  longer  is  its  close  dependence  upon  the  parent.  The 
reptiles  deposite  their  eggs  ;  they  abandon  them  ;  the  sun 
hatches  them,  and  the  young  ones  take  care  of  themselves. 
The  viviparous  reptile  provides  in  no  case,  I  believe,  for  its 
young.  The  fish  is  born,  and  does  not  know,  even  for  a  brief 
term,  its  parent.  The  bird  parts  with  the  egg,  that  is,  with 
its  issue,  before  it  is  a  separate  living  individual,  but  there  is 
hatching  and  feeding  by  the  parents.  The  mammalia  retain 
the  offspring  until  it  is  a  living  being,  and  give  nourishment  to 
it  from  out  themselves.  Men,  at  last,  furnish  the  same  food, 
but  the  child  continues  to  be  dependant  long  after  the  period 
of  lactation.  Families  are  formed,  and  continue  beyond  the 
period  of  physical  dependance,  because  the  long  time  of  de- 
pendance  gives  scope  to  the  development  of  mutual  and  en- 
during afTections,  of  gratitude  and  love. 


40  PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR. 

he  cannot  do  without  storing  up,  in  all 
those  many  regions  in  which  the  fruits  of 
the  forest  are  insufficient  to  support  hina. 

Indeed,  it  seems  that  they  are  insufficient 
to  do  so  without  a  proper  search  and  conse- 
quent accumulation  even  in  the  most  favour- 
ed regions.  The  fruits  of  the  earth,  with- 
out gathering  and  storing,  and  without  ex- 
change, which  presupposes  accumulation, 
furnish  but  very  scanty  food,  even  in  such 
luxuriant  districts  as  Upper  California.'  The 
peculiar  physical  organization  of  man  obli- 
ges him  in  another  way  to  acquire  property, 
even  in  his  lowest  stages.  His  limbs  are 
nimble  and  of  the  nicest  organization,  yet 
without  talons  ;  his  mouth  does  not  protrude 
so  that  it  might  be  used  for  attack  ;  his  body 
is  unprotected  by  fur  or  feather.  He  must 
make  arms  and  provide  shelter  for  himself; 
he  must  produce,  even  though  he  desire  no- 

'  A  History  of  Upper  and  Lower  California,  comprising  an 
Account  of  the  Climate,  &c.,  by  Alexander  Forbes,  Lon- 
don, 1839.  This  work  furnishes  us  with  a  striking  illustration 
of  the  wretchedness  of  man,  if  he  lives  without  exchange  and 
well-developed  property,  even  though  surrounded  by  a  bounti- 
ful nature. 


PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR.  41 

thing  more  than  to  live  ;  and  even  the  low- 
est savage  is  well  aware  that  what  he  him- 
self has  produced  is  his.  It  requires  no  rea- 
soning ;   he  is  conscious  of  it. 

Tile  destiny  of  man,  however,  is  not 
merely  to  exist ;  he  must  become  civilized ; 
civilization  cannot  take  place  without  in- 
crease of  population,  and  population  can- 
not increase  without  increased  production, 
increased  accumulation  and  exchange  of 
products. 

Wherever  men  do  not  accumulate  prop- 
erty, either  because  they  actually  cannot  do 
so,  owing  to  the  inclemency  of  their  climate, 
or  will  not  do  so,  because  they  are  yet  too 
brutish,  we  find  a  very  thin  population.  All 
the  sustenance  offered  by  a  luxuriant  forest 
well  stocked  with  game,  or  by  the  rivers  and 
sea,  suffices  to  support  but  a  very  scanty 
population.  The  Tchucktshi  on  the  north- 
ern coast  of  Asia,'  the  Californians  already 
mentioned,  the  New-Zealanders,  our  Indians 
in  the   West,  and   the   inhabitants  of  Bur- 

•  Narrative  of  an  Expedition  to  the  Polar  Sea  (North  of 
Asia),  by  Admiral  von  Wrangcll,  London,  1840. 

D 


42  PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR. 

mah,"  are  striking  instances  of  the  truth  of 
this  remark. 

But  civilization  does  not  only  require  ac- 
cumulated property  because  it  caimot  exist 
without  increased  population  ;  the  progress 
of  civilization  itself  demands  greater  and 
greater  accumulation.  Without  it  all  men 
must  spend  their  whole  time  in  the  search 
of  food,  like  the  animals,  and  in  the  pur- 
suit of  the  most  necessary  articles  of  pro- 
tection ;  and  no  values^  can  be  spared  for 
all  those  pursuits  which,  in  the  end,  increase 
comfort  and  happiness  indeed,  even   food 

'  A  Description  of  the  Burmese  Empire,  compiled  chiefly 
from  native  Documents,  by  the  Rer.  Father  Sangermano, 
missionary;  translated  by  William  Tandy,  D.D.,  London  Ori- 
ental Translation  Fund,  Rome,  1833. 

^  Value  is  generally  used  for  exchangeable  value,  because 
in  political  economy  we  treat  of  these  only.  Value  is  every- 
thing that  is  useful  or  desirable  for  more  than  one,  and  for 
which  those  that  do  not  possess  it  are  willing,  because  they 
desire  it,  to  part  with  other  values  called  equivalents,  that  is, 
things  which  are  as  much  desired  by  the  possessor  of  the  value 
of  which  we  first  spoke.  A  has  a  barrel  of  flour,  B  has  forty 
pounds  of  coflfee  ;  A  desires  the  coffee,  B  the  flour.  They 
exchange  it.  Flour  and  coffee,  therefore,  are  exchangeable 
values,  and  the  barrel  of  the  one  and  the  forty  pounds  of  the 
Other  are  equivalents  in  this  case. 


PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR.  43 

and  raiment,  yet  not  necessarily  immediate- 
ly so  ;  such,  for  in^stance,  as  astronomy  and 
mineralogy.  Our  next  inquiry  into  the 
right  of  property  will  bring  us  back  to  this 
subject. 

The  reader  has  found  in  the  last  note  an 
explanation  of  the  term  value  ;  and  we  may 
now  define  the  term  property  more  correctly 
by  saying,  we  call  values  property  when  we 
consider  them  Avith  reference  to  their  own- 
ers.' 

'  Ii  would  seem  that  this  more  correct  definition  is  not 
without  importance.  The  value  of  a  thing  is  not  the  same 
with  its  substance.  Value  is  utility,  desirableness.  It  may  be 
depreciated,  although  the  substance,  the  matter  of  the  thing, 
rcmams  absolutely  the  same,  or  may  even  improve.  Coffee 
becomes  belter  by  being  old ;  yet,  while  thus  the  substance 
improves,  its  price,  its  value,  its  desirableness  may  be  depreci- 
ated by  large  importations,  so  that  the  owner  receives  now 
for  the  better  coffee  less  than  he  would  have  obtained  a  year 
before  for  inferior  coffee.  After  the  rout  of  the  French  at 
Victoria  by  Wellington,  the  British  soldiers  sold  eight  Spanish 
silver  dollars  for  one  guinea,  because  silver  was  too  heavy  to 
carry,  and  thus  the  gold  became  highly  desirable. — Ma.xweH's 
Life  of  Wellington.  If  we  keep  this  definition  of  property 
strictly  in  view,  it  will  be  far  easier  to  see  the  justice  of  exclu- 
sive property,  even  in  land.  For  the  value,  constituting  the 
chief  ingredient  of  property,  is  mainly  the  creation  of  man. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  will  enable  us  to  judge  with  justice  and 


44  PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR. 

The  Right  of  Property. 

The  necessity  of  acquiring  property  for 
the  merely  physical  subsistence,  as  well  as 
the  civilized  state  of  man,  would  sufficiently 
prove  the  original  right  of  acquiring  it ;  for, 
if  the  Creator  calls  man  into  existence  to 
live,  and  has  destined  mankind  for  civiliza- 
tion, he  must,  as  an  intelligent  being,  have 
furnished  them  with  adequate  means  to  sup- 
port the  one  and  to  attain  the  other ;  and 
property,  which  is  one  of  these  adequate 
means,  cannot,  therefore,  be  unlawful.  But 
it  will  be  necessary  to  consider  the  right  of 
property,  especially  the  right  and  necessity 
of  private  or  individual  property,  more  in 
detail. 

The  primary  origin  of  all  individual  prop- 
erty must  be  occupation  ;  rightful,  if  the 
thing  appropriated  belonged  to  no  one ; 
wrongful,  if  it  be  taken  by  stealth  or  vio- 
lence from  a  rightful  owner.     Production 

perspicuity  of  such  property  as  does  not  offer  itself  to  our  eyes 
in  a  definite  bulk;  for  instance,  the  exclusive  right  of  property 
which  the  literary  producer  has  in  his  own  product,  the  literary 
work. — See  my  Letter  on  International  Copyright. 


PROPERTY    A\D    LABOUR.  45 

must  be  preceded  by  appropriating  unowned 
things,  for  value  cannot  be  bestowed  upon 
any  nnaterial  by  oiu-  industry  without  first 
appropriating  the  material,  and  some  instrn- 
ment,  say  a  sharp  stone  or  an  indented 
bone,  to  Avork  withal.  The  savage,  before 
he  can  scoop  out  a  tree  to  serve  him  as  a 
canoe,  must  have  appropriated  the  trunk 
and  something  which  may  serve  as  a  tool. 

Appropriation,  however,  does  not  only 
precede  production  in  the  earliest  stages 
of  a  tribe  ;  it  continues  to  do  so,  in  innu- 
merable  cases,  throughout  all  stages  of  hu- 
man society,  from  the  rudest  to  the  most 
refined.  Appropriation  and  production  go 
almost  constantly  hand  in  hand.  In  very 
many  cases  the  whole  act  of  production 
consists  solely,  or  in  a  very  high  degree, 
merely  in  appropriation  and  removal.  The 
fisherman  appropriates  the  distant  fish,  and, 
by  removing  it  from  the  banks  of  the  sea, 
where  it  is  desired  by  no  one,  and,  con- 
sequently, has  no  value,  to  the  market  of 
Boston,  where  it  is  desired  by  many,  he  be- 
stows value  upon  it; he  produces     The  peb- 


46  I*R(  PERTY    AND    LABOUR. 

bles  on  the  seashore  are  worth  nothing ; 
they  are  removed  to  the  garden  cf  a  resi- 
dent a  hundred  miles  up  Hudson's  River, 
where  the  o^vner  is  desirous  of  making  a 
dry  walk,  and  the  gravel  is  sold  to  him 
at  a  very  considerable  price.  The  black- 
berries, and  many  other  fruits  of  the  forest, 
medicinal  plants,  or  the  translucent  ice  of 
the  Kennebec  River,  are  appropriated  and 
carried,  the  one  to  a  populous  city  or  dis- 
tant hospitals,  the  other  to  New-Orleans 
and  Calcutta,  where  they  are  desirable,  and 
where  prices  are  obtained  for  them  suffi- 
cient to  encourage  these  branches  of  indus- 
try. In  the  place  where  these  lines  are 
writing,  twelve  and  a  half  cents  are  willing- 
ly paid  even  for  a  pound  of  inferior  ice. 
Leeches,  of  no  value  whatever  in  the  brooks 
of  Sweden,  are  exported  from  that  coun- 
try, and  sold  at  high  prices  in  the  United 
States,  because  they  are  a  very  desirable 
f.rticle  here.  The  owner  of  a  factory  ap- 
propriates the  power  of  the  swift  rivulet  for 
the  time  that  it  passes  through  his  premises, 
and  uses  it  to  bestow  a  greatly  increased 


PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR.  47 

value  ujooii  the  substance  which  he  works 
up  into  cloth  ;  the  bleacher  appropriates  the 
rain  which  falls  upon  the  linen  sent  to  him 
to  receive  a  white  colour. 

Right  and  Duty  of  Appropriation  or  Occu- 
pancy, and  Production. 

The  right  of  appropriation  is  founded 
upon  that  primitive  and  absolute  conscious- 
ness, which  is  acknowledged  by  all,  because 
it  lives  in  the  breasts  of  all,  and  precedes  all 
acknowledgment  of  right  by  government. 
It  is  the  same  consciousness  on  which  the 
right  of  parents  over  their  children  is  found- 
ed ;  the  right  of  resistance  against  wrong ; 
the  right  of  a  human  society  to  punish  of- 
fenders ;  the  right  of  protecting  what  is  our 
own,  or  our  virtue,  or  the  right  we  have 
to  demand  justice  ;  in  short,  the  conscious- 
ness upon  which  all  those  primitive  rights 
are  founded  of  which  the  largest  and  most 
detailed  codes  are  but  amplifications. 

Although  mankind  have  acted  at  all  times 
upon  this  truth,  philosophers  have  not  un- 
frequently  insisted  only  upon  that  right  of 


48  PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR. 

property  which  is  given  by  the  act  of  pro- 
duction. It  is  evident  ,o  every  human 
understanding,  even  the  -wt'akfhit,  and  ac- 
cordant with  the  feelings  of  every  one,  that 
no  person  has  a  right  to  take  from  me  that 
which  is  tiie  sole  fruit  of  my  labour,  toil, 
peril,  or  daring,  if,  in  producing  it,  I  did  not 
interfere  with  the  same  rights  of  others,  as 
good  as  my  own.  The  right  of  appropria- 
tion or  occupancy  was  insisted  upon  by  an- 
cient philosophers,  but  by  later  ones  has 
been  either  not  so  distinctly  maintained,  or 
has  been  wholly  passed  over.  This  was 
owing,  for  th-j  most  part,  probably,  to  three 
causes  :  first,  philosophers  started  from  the 
idea  that  originally  all  things  belonged  to 
all  men,  and  things  not  appropriated,  or  not 
belonging  to  any  individual,  belonged,  there- 
fore, to  all  in  common  ;  secondly,  it  was  not 
observed  \\\\\\  sufficient  distinctness  that 
there  can  exist  no  production  without  pre- 
vious occupancy  ;  and,  lastly,  the  peculiar 
nature  of  landed  property,  a  subject  which 
has  some  difficulties  of  its  own,  was  not  suf- 
ficiently considered. 


PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR.  49 

Th'i  second  point  has  already  been  spo- 
ken of,  and  the  sequel  of  these  tracts  will 
contain  remarks  on  the  first  and  third. 
Here  it  is  necessary  to  observe  again,  that 
by  appropriation  we  understand  the  act  of 
making  that  our  own  which  belongs  to  wo- 
body. 

We  make  a  thing  belonging  to  nobody 
our  own,  if  we  bring  it  under  our  control, 
and  use  or  enjoy  it.  The  term  of  enjoying 
is  preferable,  as  of  more  extensive  meaning. 
If  I  find  a  beautiful  shell  on  the  seashore, 
and  pick  it  up  to  embellish  my  mantelpiece 
or  to  amuse  my  little  ones,  or  an  Indian 
finds  a  feather,  and  ornaments  his  head  with 
it,  these  articles  are  bona  fide  our  own,  al- 
though it  may  be  said  they  are  not  of  any 
actual  use  to  us;  but  we  enjoy  them;  we 
desire  their  possession  ;  nor  is  it  possible  in 
poli'iical  economy  to  draw  a  distinct  and, 
general  line  between  mere  utility  and  de- 
sirableness for  any  other  purpose.'     Now, 

'  It  would  be  very  difficult,  indeed  impossible,  to  draw  a 
line  where  actual  utility  ceases,  respecting  houses,  furniture 
food,  or  dress.     The  advancement  of  civilization  is  in  a  great 

E 


50  PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR. 

what  belongs  to  no  one  may  evident.y  be 
occupied  by  any  one ;'  for  if  it  belonged 
to  no  one,  who  will  dispute  the  exclusive 
right  of  him  who  first  brought  it  within  his 
power,  and  uses  or  enjoys  it  ? 

An  instance  may  illustrate  our  position. 
A  savage,  and  though  we  imagine  him  of 
the  lowest  order,  walks  on  the  beach  of  the 
sea,  and  finds  a  stone  which  he  considers  fit 
to  serve  as  an  axe  or  some  other  instrument. 
It  belongs  to  no  one  ;  he  is  conscious  of 
having  a  right  of  appropriating  it.  If  an- 
other man  should  come  to  despoil  him  of 
this  useful  stone,  he  would  feel  indignant  at 

measure  founded  upon  the  fact  that  what  is  luxury  in  one 
age  becomes  want  in  the  next.  Shirts  and  window-glass 
were  in  no  very  remote  periods  articles  of  great  luxury. 
Paupers,  at  the  present  time,  receive  in  England  and  the  Uni- 
ted Stales  a  weekly  allowance  of  tea. 

'  Some  have  maintained  that  it  amounts  to  the  same,  wheth- 
er we  assume  that  things  belonged  originally  to  no  one  or  ta 
all.  This  seems  to  be  enoneous.  One  or  the  other  assump- 
tion leads  to  different  results.  Farther  below  I  shall  giva 
my  reasons  why  I  believe  it  cannot  be  maintained  that  things 
unowned  by  any  individual  belong  on  that  account  to  all. 
I  am  obliged  to  defer  this  inquiry,  because  it  would  lead  u( 
here  too  far  from  the  main  subject  of  the  present  page. 


PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR.  51 

the  injustice,  and  resist  the  aggressor.  He 
feels  as  clearly  as  man  can  feel  anything, 
that  priority  of  possession  gives  the  fullest 
possible  title  to  property.  It  belonged  to 
no  one  ;  now  it  is  in  his  individual  posses- 
sion, and  nothing  more  than  individual  pos- 
session is  necessary  to  make  it  his  own, 
wholly  and  entirely.  It  is  not,  in  this  case, 
his  labour  or  toil,  however  insignificant, 
which  makes  the  stone  his  own,  or  converts 
the  unowned  thing  into  property.  The  ag- 
gressor, whom  we  have  supposed,  may  have 
come  from  the  distance  of  three  miles  for 
the  purpose  of  seeking  for  precisely  such  a 
stone,  and  the  j&rst  finder  may  have  slept 
near  the  spot  where  he  found  it.  It  would 
change  in  no  respect  the  feelings  of  the  pro- 
prietor.' Nor  does,  as  stated  before,  the 
degree    of  utility  for  which   it  is   wanted 

'  Some  twenty  or  thirty  years  ago  the  following  case  was 
decided  in  a  court  of  the  Slate  of  New- York.  B  had  pur- 
sued a  wild  animal,  if  I  remember  right,  a  hare,  for  a  very 
long  distance,  when  suddenly  C  stepped  in,  shot,  and  appropri- 
ated it.  B  claimed  the  animal,  but  the  court  was  of  opinion 
that  his  labour  had  not  yet  produced,  or  been  preceded  by  oc- 
cupancy or  possession,  while  the  killing  by  C  had  produced  it 


52  PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR. 

change  anything.  If  the  article  found  were 
a  shell,  which  the  finder  desires  for  an  or- 
nament, but  the  aggressor  for  a  cooking 
utensil,  the  consciousness  of  the  first  that 
the  shell  is  his  would  be  as  complete  as  if 
himself  had  wanted  it  for  a  spoon. 

The  savage  now  forms  an  axe  of  the  flint 
which  he  appropriated  ;  he  bestows  labour, 
and,  by  doing  so,  confers  utility  upon  it ;  he 
produces.  If  he  chooses  to  exchange  the 
flint  axe  for  something  more  desirable  to 
him,  or  if  others  desire  to  exchange  their 
property  for  this  axe,  he  produces  what  we 
have  seen  already  is  called  an  exchangeable 
value.  If  he  desires  to  keep  the  instrument 
in  order  to  fell  a  tree  and  hollow  it  for  the 
purpose  of  using  it  as  a  canoe,  we  call  his 
axe  the  capital,  Avhich,  in  making  the  canoe, 
he  uses  productively,  inasmuch  as  the  canoe 
is  of  greater  utility  to  him,  and,  if  exchan- 
ged, of  greater  value  than  the  axe.  Capi- 
tal is  the  value  used  in  producing  new  val- 
ues. He  launches  the  canoe  in  order  to 
catch  fish  ;  the  canoe,  in  turn,  becomes  cap- 
ital,-used  productively  in  appropriating  the 
unowned  inhabitants  of  the  sea. 


PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR.  53 

We  have  observed  already  the  necessity 
of  appropriating,  preserving,  accumulating, 
and  producing,  and  have  thus  seen  the  duty 
as  well  as  the  rightfulness  of  appropriation 
and  production. 

Right  and  Duty  of  Exchange. 

The  man,  whom  we  have  selected  as  an 
instance  in  the  preceding  passages,  may 
catch  in  his  canoe  as  many  fish  as  he  deems 
proper  to  satisfy  his  own  appetite,  and  that 
of  his  wife  and  children ;  either  to  pro- 
vide for  their  wants  of  that  day,  of  a  whole 
week,  or  a  year  to  come,  if  he  have  learned 
by  this  time  how  to  preserve  the  produce  of 
his  industry.  He  may  not  only  catch  as 
many  fishes  as  will  be  actually  consumed  by 
his  family,  but  he  has  a  right  to  appropriate 
many  more,  which  he  means  to  barter  for 
such  things  as  are  desirable  for  the  suste- 
nance, comfort,  or  health  of  his  household, 
but  which  he  is  unable  to  produce  himself. 

If  experience  has  taught  him  already 
that  he  cannot  always  depend  upon  having 
the  fish  precisely  at  the  time  when  hunger 


54  PROPERTY    ANO    LABOUR. 

calls  for  them,  or  that  he  stands  in  need  of 
other  products  "vvhich  he  nevertheless  can- 
not, or  wishes  not  to  produce  himself,  he 
has  not  only  the  right  of  accumulating  and 
bartering  away  that  which  is  truly  his  own, 
but  it  is  his  duty  to  do  so  ;  for  the  laws 
of  nature  make  wife  and  children  dependant 
upon  him,  and  he  is  bound  to  provide  for 
them. 

If  he  exchanges  his  surplus  of  fish  for 
fruits  or  game  which  another  obtained  while 
he  himself  was  engaged  in  catching  fish, 
he  knows  that  the  former  are  now,  after  the 
exchange  has  taken  place,  as  much  his 
own  as  the  fish  were  before  that  act  was 
completed.  Both  these  men  soon  find  out 
that,  by  pursuing  each  his  peculiar  branch 
of  industry,  and  afterward  exchanging  what, 
according  to  their  desires,  are  equivalents, 
they  are  enabled  to  produce  far  more,  and 
obtain  the  enjoyment  of  a  much  greater  va- 
riety of  products,  than  they  would  be  able  to 
do  if  eacli  one  should  continue  to  produce  all 
that  he  himself  directly  wanted  for  his  own 
consumption.     By  division  of  labour  (which 


PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR.  55 

rests  on  the  undoubted  right  of  every  indi- 
vidual to  apply  liis  strengtii  and  skill  as 
he  thinks  best,  and  which  rests  on  the  same 
primitive  consciousness  with  our  right  of  ac- 
quiring individual  property  by  appropriation 
or  production)  and  by  exchange,  mankind 
are  enabled  to  increase  rapidly,  and  to  ex- 
ist in  great  numbers  in  districts  which  pro- 
duce but  one  or  two  articles  of  food,  or, 
perhaps,  none  at  all,  but  Avhich  supply  some 
other  article  that  is  desired  by  others,  and 
for  which  these  are  willing  to  give  what  is 
wanted  by  the  first.  The  richest  raining  dis- 
tricts may  be  totally  destitute  of  food  ;  nor 
could  the  people  of  the  pepper  countries  live 
upon  that  produce  :  so  that  by  division  of 
labour  and  exchange,  two  expedients  which 
distinguish  man  from  tlie  animal,  we  pro 
duce  infinitely  more  than  we  could  do  oth- 
erwise, and  to  it  we  must  ascribe,  in  a  great 
measure,  the  remarkable  phenomenon  of 
the  steady  increase  of  mankind  from  coun- 
try to  country.  Without  them  man  could 
not  have  carried  out  the  great  law,  that,  dif- 
fering from  the  animal,  he  shall  produce  ills 


5Q  PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR. 

own  support,  and  vastly  increase  it  with 
increased  population;  nor  could  mankind 
without  them  have  increased  to  the  number 
of  the  wild  beasts,  scanty  even  in  the  most 
fertile  forests ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  if 
animals  had  been  capable  of  exchange, 
they,  with  their  vastly  greater  fecundity, 
must  soon  have  overrun  the  earth  and  exter- 
minated man,  notwithstanding  all  his  at- 
tempts to  destroy  them.' 

It  is  not,  however,  produce  alone  that 
men  have  a  full  right  and  a  bounden  duty 
to  exchange  ;  they  may  exchange  anything 
that  is  theirs,  and  of  which  they  can  freely 
dispose.  Suppose  one  fisherman  finds  that, 
in  spite  of  all  his  exertions,  he  cannot  ob- 
tain so  much  produce  as  would  be  sufficient 
for  food,  raiment,  and  other  wants  of  hia 
growing  family  ;    wants,  moreover,  which 

'  The  enormous  power  of  multiply  ing  in  an  animal  such  as 
the  rat  may  serve  as  an  instance.  If  that  Nature  which  has 
endowed  tho  rat  with  great  procreative  power,  had  not  also 
provided  for  means  of  limiting  their  number  otherwise  than  in 
our  mind,  which  would  naturally  lead  men  to  the  invention  o( 
traps,  it  requires  no  calculation  to  see  how  easily  the  vermin 
would  prevail  over  man,  vainly  struggling  against  their  number. 


PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR.  57 

increase  in  number  as  men  advance,  step 
by  step,  in  the  career  of  civilization.  He 
has  stored  fish  and  grain  or  dried  venison, 
and  now  offers  a  part  of  it  to  a  healthy  lad 
if  he  will  work  for  him,  or  in  exchange 
for  his  labour.  The  parents  of  this  lad  have 
been  too  indolent  to  accumulate,  or  they 
have  pursued  an  unproductive  branch  of  in- 
dustry, or  may  have  met  with  repeated  mis- 
fortunes, by  which  their  accumulations  were 
destroyed.  The  lad  is  willing  to  work,  the 
fisherman  willing  to  part  with  a  share  of  his 
accumulations,  because  the  labour  of  the 
young  man  will  produce  him  more  than 
that  with  which  he  parts  ;  yet  without  this 
capital,  previously  accumulated,  the  lad 
could  produce  nothing,  or  not  live  so  well  as 
he  may  do  in  the  fisherman's  family.  Both, 
therefore,  are  benefited,  both  entitled  to  the 
produce  of  their  exchange. 

Exchange  is  one  of  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciples of  the  great  household  of  mankind, 
and  exchange  presupposes  property ;  for  we 
can  exchange  those  values  only  over  which 
we  have  an  exclusive  right ;  and,  by  offer- 


58  PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR. 

ing  our  products  for  others,  we  acknowl- 
edge that  their  possessor  has  a  right  to  dis- 
pose of  them  as  he  thinks  proper. 

Right  and  Duty  of  Accumulaiiun. 
Accumulation  of  property,  of  values  or 
wealth,  does  not  chiefly  consist  in  the  pres- 
ervation and  storing  of  a  certain  substance 
for  the  purpose  of  direct,  though  gradual 
consumption,  but  it  consists  in  the  gradual 
increase,  from  year  to  year,  of  aggregate 
values.  The  inhabitants  of  some  polar  re- 
gions are  obliged  to  catch,  at  the  proper 
season,  as  much  fish  as  they  possibly  can, 
and  to  preserve  them  in  excavations  made 
in  the  ice,  in  order  to  have  food  for  the  rest 
of  the  year.  The  hunters  in  the  northwest- 
ern tracts  of  America  must  make  their  ca- 
ches,^ so  that  they  may  not  be  exposed  to 

'  A  cache,  from  the  French  cacher,  to  hide,  designates,  in 
the  language  of  the  northwestern  hunters,  some  food,  for  in- 
stance pemican,  which  is  carefully  put  up,  and  deposited,  as 
far  as  possible,  out  of  the  reach  of  searching  animals,  on 
trees,  or,  which  is  more  common,  under  rocks. — See,  among 
other  works.  Captain  Back's  Narrative  of  the  Arctic  Land 
Expedition.     Captain  Parry's  deposite  of  the  stores  of  the 


PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR.  59 

Starvation  when  they  retrace  their  steps. 
These  are  stores  for  direct  use,  but  would 
not  be  called  accumulations  of  property,  be- 
cause the  whole  is  every  year  reduced  to 
nothing,  and  he  who  was  the  owner  is  not  a 
particle  the  wealthier  when  he  has  consumed 
his  store. 

When  a  man,  however,  clears  land,  sows, 
reaps,  and  at  the  end  of  the  year  has  saved 
some  grain,  after  having  fed  and  clothed 
his  family,  repaired  his  implements,  sup- 
ported his  cattle,  and  paid  his  hands,  he  has 
really  increased  his  values,  he  is  wealthier. 
If  he  exchanges  these  saved  values  for  tim- 
ber, builds  a  sawmill,  and  carries  on  a  pros- 
perous business,  he  again  increases  his  val- 
ues, which  he  may  invest  in  building  a  ves- 
sel. As  ship-owner  he  earns  the  freight ; 
he  may  lay  out  his  savings  in  cargoes  which 
make  a  profitable  return,  for  which  he  may 
erect  a  factory,  where  he  produces  calicoes; 
and,  by  the  time  he  retires  from  business, 

wrecked  Fury  on  the  shore  of  Prince  Regent's  Inlet,  which 
afterward  saved  Captain  Ross  and  his  gallant  crew,  waa  a 
cache  on  a  large  scale. 


60  PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR. 

he  may  be  a  wealthy  man,  ahhough  his  ori- 
ginal cattle  are  dead,  his  vessels  broken  up, 
and  his  factory  may  be  sold,  the  produce  of 
which  he  may  have  invested  in  canal  shares, 
government  stocks,  or  loans  to  individuals, 
who  pay  him  interest.  It  is  this  increase  of 
values  which  we  chiefly  call  accumulation 
of  values  or  property.  It  always  implies  a 
saving  at  the  end  of  the  year  over  and  above 
the  values  owned  at  the  beginning.  As  it  is 
with  individuals,  so  it  is  with  whole  nations. 
There  is,  in  point  of  fact,  no  such  thing  as 
national  wealth  ;  this  is  merely  a  term  for 
the  aggregate  wealth  of  a  certain  number 
of  individuals. 

Exchange  can  exist  only  in  an  extremely 
limited  degree  Avithout  accumulation.  Had 
not  the  fisherman,  whom  we  have  chosen  for 
illustration,  previously  accumulated  values, 
he  could  not  have  offered  them  in  exchange 
for  the  labour  of  the  young  man  whom  he 
employed  to  work  for  him. 

By  saving  and  accumulating  again,  and 
prudently  continuing  this  process,  he  may 
succeed  in  saving  so  much,  that  the  possess^- 


PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR.  61 

or  of  a  patch  of  land,  which  he  first  occu- 
pied, and  lawfully  so,  because  it  belonged  to 
no  one,  and  which  is  now  his,  because  clear- 
ed by  his  labour  and  used  for  his  benefit, 
may  consider  it  a  fair  equivalent  for  his  own 
property.  The  fisherman  may  desire  it  on 
account  of  the  bananas  which  grow  upon  it, 
and  the  first  cultivator  may  desire  more  his 
accumulated  grain,  in  order  to  make  it  pro- 
ductive in  some  new  land  which  he  means 
to  bring  under  cultivation.  The  banana 
land  becomes  truly  the  fisherman's  own,  be- 
cause he  has  given  for  it  what  was  absolute- 
ly his  own,  and  the  man  who  bartered  it  to 
him  had  a  perfect  right  to  dispose  of  it  as 
he  thought  best. 

The  fisherman  may  now,  with  the  stock 
he  has  saved  already,  and  the  assistance  de- 
rived from  those  who  exchange  their  labour 
for  the  surplus  of  his  industry,  reap,  when 
finally  the  harvest  comes  round,  so  much 
that  all  the  seed  is  replaced,  and  that,  be- 
sides, he  may  maintain  his  family  and  hands 
until  another  harvest  takes  place,  but  no 
more.     This  would  be  a  lamentable  state 


62  PROPERTY    AND    LAIJOl  U. 

of  things,  for  everylliiug  rnust  remain  at  a 
stand ;  no  new  land  can  be  brought  under 
tillage  ;  the  labourers  must  not  marry,  for, 
should  they  have  children,  they  must  starve. 
Everything  that  can  be  saved  is  already 
consumed  by  the  existing  members  of  the 
household ;  his  own  family  must  not  in- 
crease, nor  will  they  have  anything  to  eat, 
if,  during  a  bad  season,  the  crop  should  fail ; 
no  increase  of  comfort  can  take  place,  and, 
of  course,  the  time  of  no  member  can  be 
spared  from  the  fieldwork ;  the  young  ones 
cannot  be  taught,  nor  can  they  be  well  at- 
tended to ;  a  protracted  sickness  produces 
immediately  a  serious  inconvenience  in  the 
support  of  the  family ;  a  deficient  crop  is 
followed  by  starvation. 

We  find,  therefore,  actually  that,  with 
some  tribes  in  the  lowest  stages  of  civiliza- 
tion, and  with  whom  no  accumulation  of 
values  takes  place,  the  old  and  decrepit,  or 
those  that  are  sick  for  a  long  time,  are  aban- 
doned to  their  fate,  or  more  expeditiously 
killed.'     It    is   possible  that    this    was    the 

*  I  do  not  remember  having  met  with  a  more  detailed  ac- 


PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR.  63 

universal  custom  in  the  earliest  times.  Peo- 
ple would  then  be  driven  by  starvation  to 
argue,  as  now  shipwrecked  people  some- 
times reason,  when  they  throw  those  over- 
board who,  too  sick  .to  aid  in  the  possible 
escape,  nevertheless  consume  of  the  com- 
mon and  scanty  store  of  provision,  and 
thus  only  contribute  to  lessen  the  means  of 
eventual  safety. 

If,  however,  the  individual,  now  become 
a  farmer,  can  contrive  to  reap  so  much  that, 
after  hnving  replaced  his  seed-corn,  paid 
his  hands,  and  laid  by  a  sufficient  store  for 
his  family,  a  surplus  still  remains,  he  may 
exchange  part  of  this  for  live-stock  tamed  or 
raised  by  others,  while  he  himself  follows 
the  plough,  and  thus  he  may  encourage  and 
reward  their  industry,  and  incite  them  to 

count  of  all  the  wretchedness,  continued  suffering,  brutality, 
and  mental  depravity,  resulting  as  the  necessary  effect  of  an 
absence  of  saving  and  accumulation,  than  in  Horace  Holden's 
Narrative  of  the  Shipwreck  of  the  Mentor  on  the  Pelew  Isl- 
ands, and  his  Two  Years'  Residence  with  the  Inhabitants  of 
Lord  North's  Island,  Boston,  1836.  The  veracity  of  the  au- 
thor seems  never  to  have  been  impugned,  nor  is  there  any- 
thing in  his  book  which  would  awaken  suspicion. 


64  PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR. 

new  production.  Another  part  he  may  of- 
fer to  thos:;  wlio  have  not  yet  succeeded  iu 
saving  and  accumulating  any  values  for 
themselves,  and  Avith  them  he  may  clear 
more  land,  and  again  save  and  accumulate 
values,  and  thus  extend  gradually  the  terri- 
tory of  civilization,  increase  the  capacity  of 
the  earth  to  support  the  human  family,  and 
furnish  to  others  the  means  of  beginning  in 
their  turn  the  important  career  of  saving 
and  accumulating. 

The  chief  employer  is  not  the  only  person 
interested  in  his  own  saving  and  accumula- 
ting of  values.  Those  that  have  not  yet  any 
implements,  live-stock,  or  assistant  hands  to 
begin  cultivation  for  themselves,  are  deeply 
interested  in  it;  for  without  it  the  employ- 
er could  not  offer  them  anything  for  their 
labour.  Those  that  produce  other  articles 
are  equally  so,  because  if  the  farmer,  whom 
we  instance,  consume  everything  he  produ- 
ces, nothing  will  be  left  which  he  can  offer 
for  the  products  of  others.  There  is  nothing 
but  our  own  product  with  which  we  can 
obtain  the  products  of  others,  or,  in  other 


PROPERTY    AND    LABOyR.  65 

words,  wherewith  we  can  pay  them  for  their 
labour  and  industry.' 

If  men  had  not  saved  and  accumulated 
values,  or  saved  and  increased  property, 
they  could  never  have  elevated  themselves 
above  the  hunter's  and  fisher's  life,  the  low- 
est of  all  the  stages  through  which  mankind 
must  pass  before  populous  and  well-organ- 
ized states  are  formed.  Food,  in  that  state, 
is  exceedingly  scanty  and  precarious  ;  the 
body  poorly  protected  against  the  inclemen- 
cy of  the  weather  ;  diseases  rage  with  great 
violence  f  and  the  thin  population  which  ex- 
ists is  hardly  otherwise  employed  than  tlie 

■  Even  when  we  pay  money  for  the  product  of  another,  it  is 
always  essentially  product  which  purchases  product ;  for  that 
money  itself  was  (irst  obtained  by  giving  a  product  for  it,  the 
farmer  his  grain,  the  shoemaker  his  boots.  In  cases  of  salary 
it  is  also  the  same.  The  salary  comes  from  the  taxes  of  the 
people,  and  the  people  obtain  the  money  in  which  they  pay 
ihe  taxes  for  products  of  their  own.  There  is  nothing  that 
can  pay  for  produce  except  produce  of  others.  The  more, 
therefore,  is  saved  from  consumption,  and  is  accumulated  and 
used  reproductivcly  ;  in  other  words,  the  more  wealthy  people 
there  are  in  a  communily.  the  better  for  all. 

*  Nearly  some  whole  tribes  of  our  Indians  have  at  tinaea 
been  extinguished  by  the  smallpox  or  a  famine. 

F 


66  PROl'EKTV    AND    LABOUR. 

animals,  namely,  in  constant  quest  of  food. 
The  mere  hunters  or  fishermen,  such  as  we 
find,  to  this  day,  the  Tschuktschi  and  Ja- 
kuti  in  Northern  Asia,'  have  some  property 
indeed,  for  man  cannot  live  without  it ;  but 
it  amounts  to  so  little,  that  with  them  the 
idea  of  property  cannot  acquire  any  great 
importance. 

The  next  step  man  makes  is,  that  he  no 
longer  kills  every  animal  which  he  is  desi- 
rous of  possessing,  but  he  catches,  tames, 
and  breeds  animals ;  he  becomes  a  nomad, 
and  property  presents  itself  in  the  more  sub- 
stantial form  of  his  herds.  He  still  moves 
from  place  to  place,  yet  he  no  longer  roves 
daily.  Property  may  now  begin  to  accu- 
mulate, and  civilization  to  dwell  with  his 
horde.  The  herds  are  more  enduring  than 
the  killed  game  ;  property  begins  to  present 
itself  substantially  and  respectably.  The 
unsettled  state  of  the  nomadic  life  is,  indeed, 
not  propitious  to  civilization  ;  still  it  is  far 
more  so  than  the  hunter's  life ;  and,  so  far 
as  the  nomadic  life  is  more  civilized,  it  is 

^  WraDgell's  Narrative. 


PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR.  67 

mainly  owing  to  a  greater  amount  of  saved, 
accumulated  property. 

Individual  rights,  however,  cannot  show 
themselves  with  very  great  clearness  in  the 
nomadic  life.  The  patriarchal  principle, 
unfavourable  to  an  essentially  political  civ- 
ilization,' necessarily  prevails,  and  the  mem- 
bers of  a  tribe  are  uninterruptedly  in  close 
contact,  sharing  all  dangers,  toils,  and  en- 
joyments, and  depending,  in  what  is  most 
important  to  them,  the  pasture  of  their  cat- 
tle, upon  a  strictly  common  stock.  All  the 
descriptions  of  travels  among  nomadic  tribes, 
of  which  our  literature  has  been  of  late  fur- 
nished with  many  interesting  ones,  prove 
the  truth  of  these  remarks.^  They  hold, 
likewise,  in  this  essential  point,  if  we  apply 
them  to  those  wandering  tribes  who  live  al- 
most exclusively  upon  fish,  and  are  not  gen- 
erally included  in  the  nomadic  tribes,  such 
as  inhabit  the  most  northern  regions  of  Asia. 

'  I  have  given  my  views  on  this  subject  more  at  length  at 
the  beginning  of  vol.  ii.  of  Political  Ethics. 

^  GutzlafT,  in  the  before-mentioned  work,  gives  some  very 
interesting  proofs  of  the  above  remarks,  with  reference  to  the 
nomadic  tribes  under  the  Chinese  superior  sway. 


68  PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR. 

Civilization  may  be  said  to  take  a  fair 
start  only  when  man  begins  lastingly,  and 
not  for  a  season  merely,  to  cultivate  the 
ground,  and  when  he  establishes  enduring 
individual  property  in  the  soil.  He  then 
becomes  settled,  and,  on  that  account  alone, 
a  great  many  values  are  saved,  and  become 
the  foundation  for  farther  production  and 
acquisition  of  values,  which  would  have 
been  wasted  in  the  roving  or  nomadic  state. 
Landed  property  inspires  a  greater  interest 
than  that  which  is  movable,  or,  as  Lord 
Kames  expresses  it,  the  affection  for  proper- 
ty shows  itself  more  intensely.  When  man 
tills  the  ground,  in  other  words,  when  he  no 
longer  depends  upon  the  fruits  which  the  for- 
est offers  accidentally  to  him,  or  on  the  pas- 
ture Avhich  nature  furnishes  spontaneously  to 
his  cattle,  but  when  he  roots  out  the  plants 
which  give  no  food,  and  obliges  the  soil  to 
bear  the  nutritious  plants  he  stands  in  need  of, 
and  to  produce  them  in  increased  quantities  by 
his  own  improvement  of  the  soil,  then  only 
a  denser  population,  so  indispensable  for  civ- 
ilization, becomes  possible ;  exchange  and 


PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR.  69 

intercourse,  mutual  reliance  and  support,  are 
greatly  promoted  ;  manners  become  milder  ; 
fruits  instead  of  beasts  or  men  are  sacri- 
ficed ;  individual  rights  are  more  and  more 
acknowledged  ;  more  than  mere  safety  of 
life  and  limb  is  thought  of  and  sought  for ; 
man  rises  in  his  own  estimation,  because 
he  is  no  longer  a  mere  accidental  unit  of 
his  restless  nomadic  horde,  but  he  feels  him- 
self, with  his  stationary  property,  or  the  im- 
portant right  and  capacity  of  acquiring  it, 
an  integral  part  of  society ;  indeed,  it  may 
be  briefly  expressed,  because  the  wander- 
ing horde  changes  into  an  organized  com- 
munity ;  and,  finally,  those  political  socie- 
ties arise  which  we  call,  more  properly, 
states,'  or  political  societies  with  fixed  terri- 
tories. 

'  In  our  philosophical  arguments  we  often  use  the  term 
State  in  a  wider  sense,  meaning  thereby  any  political  society 
which,  by  authority,  protects  and  exacts  the  relations  of  Right  ; 
which  administers  justice,  both  in  protecting  what  ought  to  be 
protected,  and  in  deciding  between  conflicting  claims  or  inter- 
ests ;  and  which,  in  order  to  do  this,  prescribes  laws  ;  but 
more  commonly  wc  mean  by  a  .State  a  political  society  with  a 
fixed  territory.  A  nomadic  Tatar  tribe,  with  its  well-ac- 
knowledged chief,  nobility,  courts  and  laws,  and  distinci  ob« 


70  PROl'LK'JV    A\D    LAUOUR. 

More  stable,  orgiuii'/ed,  nrid  regular  gov- 
ernments grow  up  out  of  llie  various  rela- 
tions of  the  individuals  of  this  denser  popula- 
tion with  one  another,  and  with  the  soil  they 
inhabit  and  cultivate.  The  government 
does  not  precede  these  stales  or  societies, 
and  it  does  not  make  the  property.  Prop- 
erly is  not  the  creature  of  government ;  but 
if  by  government  we  understand  that  sys- 
tem of  protection,  authority,  and  adminis- 
tered justice  which  naturally  grows  up,  the 
stronger  and  the  better  defined,  the  more 
settled  the  society  becomes,  then  property 
precedes  government,  and  the  latter  arises 
out  of  the  former.     It  may  be  maintained, 

ligations  of  the  individual,  as  well  as  a  certain  tract  of  land  over 
which  it  moves  in  the  course  of  a  year,  according  to  the  sea- 
sons, is  a  State,  in  the  philosophic  and  comprehensive  mean- 
ing of  the  word  ;  but  it  will  hardly  be  called  so  in  the  usual 
adaptation  of  the  term.  This  distinction  has  arisen  from  a 
correct  feeling.  Men  have  seen  and  long  felt  the  difference 
between  the  incipient  political  society  scattered  as  hunters  over 
a  vast  and  ill-defined  ground,  in  which  in  itself  they  take  no  in- 
terest, but  only  in  the  game  upon  it,  or  a  moving  horde  on  the 
one  side,  and  a  stationary  political  society,  with  a  fixed  terri- 
tory and  a  deep,  manifold,  and  pervading  interest  in  it  on  the 
other. 


PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR.  71 

therefore,  with  far  greater  truth,  that  gov- 
ernment is  the  creature  of  property.'  There 
is  always  that  consciousness  in  the  bosom 
of  man  that  he  has  an  undoubted  right 
to  appropriate  to  himself  that  which  be- 
longs to  no  one ;  and  that,  what  he  pro- 
duces by  his  own  labour  and  with  his 
own  capital,  or  previously  saved  values,  is 
his  own ;  and  he  invests  what  is  his  own  in 
the  tillage  of  the  ground  long  ere  a  denser 
population  makes  a  regular  and  permanent 
government  necessary  or  possible. 

When  this  comes  gradually  to  be  estab- 
lished, men  are  already  abundantly  in  posses- 
sion of  property  of  all  sorts  ;  usages  respect- 
ing its  possession  and  transfer  have  already 
been  established,  and  become  that  bulk  of 
imbodicd  feelings  from  Avhich  the  common 
law  of  the  land  is  gathered,  or  Avhich  is  the 
more  distinct  acknowledgment  of  the  usa- 
ges and  feelings  of  the  people.  Govern- 
ment,  being    the    acting    exponent    of    the 

'  The  fact,  that  at  later  periods  landed  property  has  fre- 
quently been  parcelled  out  by  a  government  consisting  of 
conquerors,  will  be  considered  farther  below. 


72  PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR. 

opinions  of  the  community,  consolidates  and 
aids  in  the  farther  development  of  those 
usages,  and  of  property  itself. 

It  is  singularly  surprising  if  an  American 
maintains  that  property  is  the  creature  of 
government;  yet  it  is  not  unfrequently  done. 
If  this  be  true,  British  Parliament  had  an 
ample  right  to  tax  the  colonies,  and  the 
whole  struggle  of  the  Revolution,  instead 
of  being  a  glorious  contest  for  justice  and 
liberty,  was  a  most  senseless  one,  because 
our  forefathers  avowedly  drew  the  sword 
and  plunged  into  a  very  doubtful  war,  not 
because  they  complained  of  being  over- 
taxed— Lord  North  was  willing  to  give  up 
everything  except  the  right  of  taxation — but 
because  they  denied  that  Parliament  pos- 
sessed the  right  of  taxation.  Chatham, 
therefore,  the  champion  of  the  American  col- 
onies,  said  boldly  and  nobly,  in  his  famous 
speech  on  January  20th,  1775,  which  Frank- 
lin, who  heard  it,  extols  so  highly  in  his 
Memoirs  :  "  Property  is  private,  individual, 
absolute  ;"  and,  speaking  of  the  supreme 
power  of  Parliament,  he  adds  :  "  But  this  su- 


PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR.  73 

preme  power  has  no  effect  towards  exter- 
nal taxation  ;  for  it  does  not  exist  in  that  re- 
lation ;  there  is  no  such  thing,  no  such  idea 
in  this  Constitution,  as  a  supreme  power 
operating  upon  property.  As  an  American, 
I  would  recognise  in  England  her  supreme 
right  regulating  commerce  and  navigation  : 
as  an  Enghshman  by  birth  and  principle,  I 
recognise  in  the  Americans  their  supreme 
unalienable  right  in  their  property ;  a  right 
which  they  are  justified  in  the  defence  of 
to  the  last  extremity.'" 

"We  find,  indeed,  several  tribes  who  hold 
land,  either  as  hunting-grounds,  pastures,  or 
even  for  transient  tillage,  in  common.  But 
they  do  so  in  the  two  first  cases,  because  the 
land  itself  is  of  no  value,  or  only  of  a  common 
one ;  the  transient  benefit  alone  is  of  value  ; 
and  in  the  latter  case  people  have  no  lasting 

'  Chatham's  Correspondence,  vol.  iv.,  p.  382.  That  great 
man  said  in  his  rejoinder  :  "  I  maintain,  and  ever  shall  main- 
tain, that  the  right  which  God,  Nature,  and  the  Constitution 
has  given  a  British  subject  to  his  property  is  invariably  inalien- 
able without  his  own  consent,  and  no  power  under  heaven 
can  touch  it  without  that  consent  either  implied  or  exprcssU 
and  directly  given." — Correspondence,  vol  iv.,  p.  385. 


74  PROrERTY    AND    LABOUR. 

individual  property  in  the  soil,  because  they 
have  not  yet  a  lasting  interest  in  it.'  Their 
knowledge  of  agriculture  is  yet  very  lin-iited  ; 
any  land  will  do  for  their  hasty  crops  ;  their 
manners  are  not  yet  sufficiently  freed  of  the 
original  disposition  to  rove.  Such  tribes 
must  be  considered  as  in  a  state  of  transi- 
tion, from  the  nomad  or  rover  to  the  culti- 
vator of  the  soil.  Men  in  this  state  are 
interested  in  the  soil  only  for  a  passing  sea-  ■ 
son  ;  but,  so  long  as  they  are  actually  inter- 
ested in  it,  so  long  is  there  no  community 
of  property  ;  they  till  each  one  the  assigned 
or  chosen  space  for  himself.  l\Ian  always 
appropriates  that  which  sufficiently  interests 
him,  and,  accordingly,  he  excludes  others. 
So  far  as  man  accumulates  property — not 
in  order  to  hoard  it,  but  for  the  purpose  of 
investing  it  for  farther  production — so  far 
only  advances  he  in  the  career  of  civiliza- 
tion. The  improvidence  and  Avasteful  dis- 
position of  savages,  of  men  in  the  hunting 

'  It  may  be  proper  to  cite  here  a  passage  of  Tacitus,  Ger- 
mania,  26,  which  will  be  fully  quoted  in  a  subsequent  part  of 
this  volume.     It    supports  the  remarks  in  this  page. 


PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR.  75 

and  fishing  states,  and  of  nomads,  are  well 
known;  and  as  they  contemn  labour,  while 
by  industry  alone  accumulation  of  property 
can  take  place,  they  are  found  to  remain  in 
their  subordinate  state.  The  contempt  for 
labour,  and  also  for  property  beyond  a  few 
personal  articles,  in  our  Indians  is  signally 
deplored  by  the  missionaries  and  govern- 
ment agents  as  the  most  serious  obstacle  in 
the  way  of  civilizing  them  ;'  and  a  distin- 
guished traveller  in  Arabia  Petreea,  speak- 
ing of  the  contrast  between  the  high  culti- 
vation and  civilization  of  parts  of  it  in  an- 
cient times,  and  their  desert  state  at  present, 

'  Mr.  Schoolcraft,  well  known  for  his  intimate  knowledge 
of  Indian  affairs,  says,  in  his  Annual  Report  of  the  Acting  Su- 
perintendent of  Indian  AfTairs  for  Michigan,  made  to  the  Bu- 
reau of  Indian  Affairs  at  Washington,  Detroit,  1840,  page  15  • 
"Our  Northern  Indians  are  averse  to  manual  labour  in  ail  its 
forms,  but  to  no  species  of  it  are  they  more  so  than  to  agricul- 
ture ;  to  fell  trees,  make  fences,  grub,  plough,  sow,  and  reap, 
are  employments  so  uncongenial  to  them,  that  it  is  with  great 
difficulty  that  they  can  be  induced  to  give  even  a  partial  at- 
tention to  them."  The  author  continues  to  say  that  sending 
farmers  among  them,  as  is  done  with  mechanics,  and  thus  to 
win  them  gradually  for  civilization,  must  remain  one  of  the 
main  steps  for  their  improvement,  however  great  the  difficulty 
may  be. 


76  PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR. 

as  wcUnsof  the  hopclcs&ncss  of  elevating  the 
Bedouin  Arab,  gives  as  the  cause  of  these 
evils  the  utter  contempt  of  those  wayward 
children  of  the  desert  for  property  and  the 
means  of  acquiring  it.  They  will  rather 
suffer  any  inconvenience  than  degrade 
themselves,  as  they  hold  it,  by  labour.'  One 
of  the  great  causes  of  the  superiority  which 
the  while  race  has  acquired  over  all  others 
is,  that  labour  has  risen  to  honour,  and  that 
industry  has  at  length  been  closely  wedded  to 
science  and  knowledge.  The  history  of  la- 
bour, and  especially  of  its  increased  respect- 
ability, is  one  of  the  leading  threads  which 
form  the  warp  of  the  rich  tapestry  of  Euro- 
pean civilization.  Through  the  increased 
respect  for  labour  and  industry  alone  was  it 
possible  to  save  that  immense  amount  of 
values  of  Avhich  civilization  stands  in  need.* 

'  De  Laborde,  Journey  through  Arabia  Petraea  to  Mount  Si- 
nai and  the  Excavated  City  of  Petra,  2d  ed.,  London,  1838. 

2  It  has  been  the  endeavour  of  the  author  to  show  the  just 
foundation  of  the  right  of  property,  and  that  its  origin  is  inde- 
pendent of  government.  Whether  he  has  succeeded  or  not, 
it  will  be  granted  that  a  theory  which  acknowledges  absolute 
lights  of  property  must,  in  its  nature,  lead  to  greater  stability 


PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR.  77 

than  that  which  founds  all  right,  all  property  in  "convenience," 
a  term  which  allows  of  all  possible  changes,  and,  above  all, 
leads  to  that  slavish  and  abject  doctrine  that  all  property  is  a 
creature  of  government,  a  theory  in  which  absolutists,  both 
monarchical  and  democratic,  have  often  agreed.  The  author, 
therefore,  was  somewhat  surprised  to  find  that  a  member  of 
Parliament,  reported  to  be  a  prominent  Liberal,  stigmatized  in 
the  Commons,  on  January  29,  1841,  the  theory  of  property  and 
personal  production,  which  the  author  of  this  volume  indicated, 
in  liis  Letter  to  Mr.  Preston  on  International  Copyright,  as 
"  Watt  Tyler  doctrine."  Of  course  the  member  could  not 
stop  there  ;  he  broadly  pronounced  "  that  there  is  no  such  a 
thing  as  natural  right."  This  is  the  most  disorganizing  abso- 
lutism, whatever  crest  its  coat  of  arms  may  have,  crown  or 
cap,  that  can  be  preached.  That  such  a  member  can  call 
himself,  and  can  pass  for  a  Liberal,  shows  a  great  confusion 
of  ideas. 

These  remarks  have  been  made  on  the  presumption  that  the 
debates  on  Sergeant  Talfourd's  Copyright  Bill  were  correctly 
repotted  in  one  of  the  leading  London  papers. 


III. 

Right  of  Transfer.     Grant,  Sale,  Bequest. 

The  nature  of  property,  which  implies 
free  disposal  of  the  thing  owned,  as  well  as 
the  right  of  exchange,  of  which  we  have 
treated,  sufficiently  prove  the  right  of  trans- 
fer by  grant  and  sale.  The  latter  is  nothing 
more  than  exchange.  It  will  nevertheless 
be  necessary  to  consider  more  in  detail  some 
points  relating  to  this  subject,  and  especial- 
ly the  right  of  bequeathing. 

I  must  have  the  right  to  give  away  or  ex- 
change what  belongs  to  me  ;  if  not,  it  does 
not  wholly  belong  to  me.  So  far  as  this 
right  of  transfer  relates  to  the  products  of 
our  own  labour,  and  to  a  transfer  during 
the  lifetime  of  him  who  transfers,  this  right 
has  generally  been  acknowledged  by  all 
philosophers,  without  any  farther  limitation 
than  the  general  one,  that  the  individual 


PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR.  79 

eannot  be  allowed  to  do  anything  which 
works  manifest  injury  to  others,  because  man 
must  live  in  society,  and  the  actions  of  the 
individual  must  accommodate  themselves 
to  this  supreme  law.  The  rights  of  trans- 
ferring property  in  land,  however,  and  of 
transfer  by  testament,  have  not  been  admit- 
ted so  unanimously.  Their  propriety  has 
often  been  doubted,  or  they  have  been  de- 
clared to  consist  in  a  mere  municipal  arv 
rangement ;  to  be  an  absolute  invention  of 
government,  not  founded  in  the  law  of  Na- 
ture or  the  universal  feelings  of  mankind, 
even  by  persons  who  did  not  question  a  per- 
fect and  complete  right  of  property  in  a 
man's  gains. 

There  are  various  reasons  for  this  dis- 
tinction, of  which  a  few  only  shall  be  men- 
tioned at  this  stage  of  our  inquiry.  One 
of  them  is,  that  philosophers,  and  among 
them  very  great  ones,  wrote,  as  indeed  it 
has  already  been  stated,  before  Political 
Economy  had  clearly  shown  that  a  pro- 
duct of  our  labour  is  always  the  joint  ef- 
fect of  labour,  appropriation,  and  accumu- 


80  PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR. 

lation  of  value  reinvested  in  the  new  prod- 
uct. This  want  of  a  clear  perception  of 
all  the  component  parts  of  a  product  made 
the  product  of  industry,  such  as  an  axe  or 
a  box,  appear  radically  different  from  an 
appropriated  and  cultivated  piece  of  land. 
Another  reason  is  to  be  found  in  the  errone- 
ous supposition  already  mentioned,  that  gov- 
ernments preceded  and  made  property  ;  that, 
therefore,  all  a  man  accumulates,  or  the  land 
w^hich  he  cultivates,  he  holds  as  a  boon  or 
at  the  mercy  of  government,  and  that  his 
government  did  quite  enough  if  it  allowed 
the  individual  the  enjoyment  of  this  proper- 
ty, which,  owing  again  to  an  erroneous  no- 
tion already  mentioned,  was  always  consid- 
ered as  so  much  withheld  from  others  during 
the  possessor's  lifetime. 

This  view  is  closely  connected  with  the 
error  that  there  was  an  original  community 
before  property  was  divided.  Lastly,  it 
was  maintained,  and  still  is  so  at  times,  that 
transfer  and  accumulation  of  property  which 
proceeds  by  inheritance  cannot  be  proved 
by  any  sound  logic,  and  is  a  violation  of  all 
reason. 


PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR.  81 

Right  of  Transfer  by  Bequest. 

The  adversaries  of  this  right  have  main- 
tained that,  Waiving  the  fact  that  property 
is  a  boon  of  society,  the  privilege  of  be- 
queathing is  against  all  reason  and  the  first 
principle  of  justice,  which  is,  that  there 
shall  be  no  right  without  a  corresponding 
obligation,  and  no  obligation  without  a  cor- 
responding right.  But  by  the  right  of  be- 
queathing we  actually  give  a  right  to  a  dead 
man,  or  to  one  who  can  have  no  longer 
any  obligations.  How  can  a  being,  no 
longer  existing  in  this  world,  and,  conse- 
quently, a  political  nonentity,  have  a  right 
to  influence  still  the  actions  of  the  living? 
A  right  must  be  attached  to  some  person 
or  persons  who  exist.  If,  then,  we  allow 
such  a  thing  as  laws  of  inheritance,  it  is 
merely  a  gracious  act  of  ours,  the  operation 
of  which  we  may  stop  at  any  time.  The 
law  of  inheritance  is  strictly  municipal  and 
positive  ;  a  law  which  exists  nowhere  un- 
less directly  enacted ;    it  is  no  law  founded 

in  nature. 

G 


82  VKOPERTY    AND    LABOUR. 

These  remarks  may  have  some  appear- 
ance of  plausibility,  because  they  may  ap- 
pear to  involve  strict  logical  reason.  No- 
where, however,  is  such  apparent  strictness 
more  dangerous  than  in  arguments  on  po- 
litical subjects.  I  shall  be  content  if  it  can 
be  shown  that  the  laws  of  inheritance  are 
the  effect,  as  well  as  a  recognition,  of  the 
distinct  and  best  feelings  of  man,  and  that 
they  operate  essentially  for  the  good  of  so- 
ciety. 

First,  it  will  be  remembered  that,  if  our 
theory  is  correct,  government  is  far  from 
originating  my  property.  I  make  it,  and 
no  thanks  are  due  to  any  one  for  it ;  it 
grows  in  a  hundred  cases  without  the  aid 
of  government ;  in  many  cases  actually  in 
spite  of  government ;  and  one  of  the  chief 
duties  of  government,  one  of  the  main  ends 
for  which  it  exists,  is  that  it  protect  me  in 
my  lawfully-acquired  property.  For  this 
service  government  takes  already  part  of 
my  property,  in  obliging  me  to  pay  taxes. 
Nowhere  does  government  directly  mcrease 
property  ;  indeed,  it  cannot.     All  that  gov- 


PROPERTY    AND    LABbUR.  83 

ernment  does  directly,  is  to  lessen  it ;'  for, 
whatever  I  pay  in  taxes,  I  Avould  have  saved 
and  employed  in  reproduction.  Nor  do  val- 
ues once  paid  in  taxes  return  as  new  values 
to  the  tax-payer.**  Government  makes,  in- 
deed, an  indirect  and  very  important  return 
for  my  taxes,  by  protecting  me,  by  admin- 
istering justice  and  maintaining  the  peace  of 
the  land,  and  by  thus  vastly  increasing  the 

I  Extraordinary  grants  of  government,  especially  after  con- 
quests, are,  cf  course,  not  spoken  of  here.  They  are  no  in- 
crease of  property. 

^  If  goveniment  spends  the  inoney  it  receives  in  taxes,  di- 
rectly or  in  the  shape  of  salaries  to  its  officers,  these  values 
can  never  be  obtained  by  the  original  lax-payer  e.'icept  lie  pay 
new  values  given  in  exchange  for  it.  Government  may  or- 
der the  values  received  in  taxes  to  be  spent  in  digging  a  ca- 
nal, but  the  tax  does  not  flow  back  to  the  people;  they  must 
first  dig,  that  is,  give  a  day's  labour  before  they  can  obtain  a 
day's  wages.  If  the  people,  therefore,  must  first  work  a  day 
to  produce  »he  tax,  and  an  additional  day  to  receive  its  equiv- 
alent, it  is  correct  to  say  that  the  value  of  the  tax  does  not 
flow  back  to  the  people.  I  speak  here,  of  course,  of  taxes  paid 
for  the  support  of  government  only.  Such  a  tax  as  is  levied  in 
Philadelphia  for  the  water-work  is  difTerent.  The  city  govcrn- 
m*-"*,  in  this  case,  has  become  the  simple  agent  for  society  to 
ex*— ule  a  certain  work.  The  water  is  purchased.  So  may 
two  or  three  families  purchase  sugar  in  common,  to  have  it 
cheaper  or  better,  and  divide  the  expense. 


84  PROPERTY    AND    LABOUP  - 

value  of  property  and  labour;  b/ .  it  ,9  ja 
the  very  reason  why  people  [)iiy  tj-.cs  urn} 
despoil  themselves  of  hard-earned  values. 
Without  this  indirect,  yet  highly  importont 
return  on  the  part  of  government,  its  costly 
maintenance  would  be  outrageous  robbery.' 
If  we  consider  the  subject  of  inheritance 
historically,  we  find  invariably,  not  that  it 
exists  from  the  beginning  clearly  and  sub- 
stantially, and  vanishes  with  the  progress  of 
civilization  ;  but  that,  on  the  contrary,  it  ex- 
ists originally  in  an  incipient  stage,  and  de- 
velops itself  more  clearly  with  every  prog- 
ress of  civilization,  in  precisely  the  same 
degree  as  the  whole  institution  of  property 

■  Vessels  may  sometimes  be  seen  in  the  harbour  of  Halifax, 
Nova  Scotia,  laden  with  eggs  brought  from  the  coast  of  Lab- 
rador, whither  many  migratory  birds  proceed  during  the  sea- 
son of  incubation.  How  has  government  made  that  property  1 
How  does  government  make  any  merchant's  property,  whc 
does  not  gain  it  in  consequence  of  government  restrictioni 
on  imports  or  exports  1  How  does  government  make  the 
property  of  the  farmer  in  the  West,  who  first  paid  his  values 
for  public  land — an  equivalent  the  benefit  of  which  society  en- 
joys— and  who  improves  the  land,  all  the  time  paying  part  o' 
his  own  property  for  the  peace  in  which  he  is  allowed  to  pui' 
sue  the  agricultural  acquisition  of  property  1 


PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR.  85 

becomeij  more  distinct  and  definite.  There 
must,  then,  be  some  natural  principle  on 
which  inheritance  is  founded,  which  be- 
comes more  distinctly  developed  the  more 
civilization  develops  our  true  nature,  or 
that  in  us  which  essentially  distinguishes 
us  as  men.'  It  will  not  be  difficult  to  find 
this  principle,  and  the  perfect  right  of  be- 
queathing. 

As  to  the  right.^  Originally  wills  are 
made  by  word  of  mouth.  If  a  man  is  at 
the  point  of  death,  he  says  to  those  who  are 
around  him  in  what  manner  he  Avishcs  to 
dispose  of  what  yet  is  his,  and  of  which  he 
has,  therefore,  the  full  right  of  disposal. 
Most  codes  still  acknowledge,  under  certain 
circumstances,  these    oral   or    nuncupative 

'  This  is,  in  my  opinion,  the  only  way  of  finding  out  what 
is  essentially  natural  to  man,  but  not  subvening  the  true  order 
by  assuming  the  savage  state,  in  which  almost  everything  es- 
sentially human,  and,  therefore,  truly  natural  to  man,  is  stint- 
ed and  stifled.  I  have  endeavoured  to  develop  this  truth  in 
my  Political  Ethics. 

-  The  difficulty  of  this  subject  may  have  been  increased  by 
the  fact  that  the  right  of  inheritance  was  far  more  frequently 
discussed  than  that  of  bequeathing. 


86  PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR. 

wills,  as  they  are  called  in  law.  A  soldier 
dying  on  the  field  of  battle  may,  according 
to  the  Roman  law,  make  his  will  in  this 
manner.  With  a  suflioient  number  of  wit- 
nesses around  him,  and  under  certain  cir- 
cumstances, a  dying  man  may  thus  bequeath 
his  property  in  Austria.  The  right  cannot 
be  doubted.  The  dying  man  disposes  of 
what  is  yet  his  own.  The  danger  of  these 
wills,  however  ;  the  inability  of  the  dying 
man  calmly  and  prudently  to  consider  all 
circumstances  ;  tiie  facility  with  which  those 
around  him  may  influence  him  to  the  detri- 
ment of  the  absent  ones,  or  may  misrepre- 
sent him ;  and  the  danger  that  the  priests 
administering  the  last  rites  would  use  their 
privilege  for  their  own  benefit  or  that  of  the 
church,  have  induced  the  various  states  ei- 
ther entirely  to  abolish  the  nuncupative  wills, 
or  greatly  to  limFt  their  power. 

A  written  will  is  substituted,  but  it  means 
essentially  still,  "  I  write  this  now,  when 
possessed  of  clear  intellect,  and  with  the 
advice  of  proper  persons,  that  it  may  serve 
as  my  last  declaration  and  will  when  I  draw 


PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR.  87 

the  last  breath."  As  it  is  written  before- 
hand for  caution's  sake,  so  it  is  opened  with 
the  necessary  precaution  to  guard  against 
fraud.  Still,  all  these  forms  and  precau- 
tions are  substitutes  for  the  oral  testament. 

It  is  found  by  experience,  and  corre- 
sponds to  the  feelings  of  the  whole  commu- 
nity, that,  unless  there  be  peculiar  reasons 
for  acting  differently,  parents  will  leave  their 
property  rather  to  their  children  than  to  oth- 
ers ;  relations  rather  to  their  kindred  ;  and 
as  it  is  felt,  moreover,  that  government  or 
society  has  no  special  right  whatever  to  a 
man's  property,  which  has  been  lawfully 
earned  and  justly  accumulated,  wise  gov- 
ernments acknowledge  this  feeling  by  dis- 
tinct laws  for  all  cases  in  which  wills  are 
wanting,  and  settle  the  order  of  heirs  ac- 
cording to  the  distance  of  relationship,  that 
is,  according  to  the  presumed  affection  of 
the  departed  person.  In  doing  this  it  docs 
what  a  true  government  ought  to  do.  It  is 
the  great  law  of  liberty  to  alVow  things  fair- 
ly to  take  their  own  course,  and  to  protect 
where  rights  thus  grown  up  demand  it.     It 


88 


PROPKRTY    AND    LABOUR. 


is  right  that  the  laws  presume,  where  there 
is  no  will,  that  the  deceased  would  have  left 
his  property  as  seems  to  be  most  natural  for 
him  to  leave  it.  To  presume  anything  else 
would  be  tyranny.  The  despots,  whether 
monarchical  or  democratic,  are  always 
pleased  to  consider  everything  in  the  state  as 
made  by  the  government — dependant  upon 
them;  and  that  they  have  a  right  to  meddle 
with  all  things.  The  principle  of  freedom  i» 
to  leave  as  much  as  possible  to  spontaneous 
action,  and  to  confirm  by  law  what  has  thus 
already  grown  up  out  of  the  free  action  of 
the  people.' 

■  Magna  Charta  confirms  that  the  goods  of  every  freeman 
shall  be  disposed  of  according  to  his  will  and  testament  ;  and 
that,  if  he  die  intestate,  his  heirs  at  law  shall  succeed  to  them. 
In  doing  this  it  does  not  create  the  law  of  inheritance.  This 
had  grown  up  from  times  immemorial  ;  but  it  had  often  been 
invaded,  and  thus  become  necessary  to  be  distinctly  pronoun- 
ced and  confirmrd,  just  as  the  provision  of  the  same  charter 
that  "  We  (the  king)  shall  sell,  delay,  or  deny  justice  to  no 
one,"  does  not  create  the  administration  of  justice  which  is 
natural  and  indispensable  to  all  human  society.  Nor  are  the 
heirs  at  law,  spoken  »f  in  the  first- mentioned  provision,  per- 
sons made  heirs  by  a  positive  law,  but  the  heirs  whom  the 
feelings  of  men  designate  as  such,  and  who  had  been  consid- 
ered as  the  proper  heirs  long  ere  a  positive  law  con£naed  them 
as  such. 


PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR.  89 

The  law  becomes  still  more  confirmed 
when  men  perceive  that  an  undisturbed 
right  of  bequest  is  one  of  the  greatest  incen- 
tives in  men  to  produce  and  accumulate, 
and  thus  to  benefit  the  whole  ;  that  it  en- 
genders noble  feelings  of  disinterestedness 
and  the  invaluable  habit  of  self-depend- 
ance,  while  uncertainty  of  the  right  of  be- 
quest, or  its  total  absence,  prevents  accu- 
mulation, and  thus  retards  civilization,'  be- 
getting timidity,  dependance,  and  selfish- 
ness. For  where  you  destroy  the  family 
bonds  and  family  incentives,  it  is  in  vain 
to  hope  that  a  feeling  of  general  patriot- 
ism for  the  community  at  large  may  be  made 
a  substitute  to  incite,  not  to  single  brilliant 
deeds,  but  to  obscure  actions  returning  with 
their  daily  drudgery,  such  as  are  involved 
in  the  accumulation  of  property  with  all 
persons  who  do  not  meet  with  so  great  and 
rapid  a  success  that  this  alone  would  be  a 

'  For  instance  in  Asia.  The  unsettled  inheritance  and  gen- 
eral insecurity  of  property  in  Burmah  have  prevented  the  ac- 
cumulation, of  value  in  that  rich  country  to  such  a  degree  that 
money  is  worth  five  per  cent,  a  monlb. — Sangermano. 

H 


90  PROPERTV    AND    LAnOUR. 

sufficient  incentive.  Insecurity  of  proper- 
ty, the  thought  "who  knows  what  will  be- 
come of  my  property  after  I  am  dead," 
make  the  Asiatics  proverbially  selfish.  The 
fiercest  and  most  loathsome  egotism  would 
follow  from  an  adoption  of  Plato's  destruc- 
tion of  the  family  ;  and  where  we  destroy  the 
laws  of  individual  inheritance,  we  must  ef- 
fectually destroy  the  family ;  for  if  proper- 
ty does  not  go  to  wife  and  children,  who 
shall  take  care  of  them  ?  of  course,  the 
state.  We  must  have,  then,  some  sort  of 
Spartan  republic.  Indeed,  since  the  fam- 
ily cannot  exist  without  individual  inherit- 
ance, and  modern  civilization  and  liberty 
depend  essentially  upon  the  family  and  the 
perfect  protection  of  the  individual,  it  may 
be  safely  said  that  modern  liberty  cannot 
exist  without  individual  inheritance.' 

There  is  still  a  higher  view  which  we 
may  take  of  the  right  of  bequeathing.     It 

'  The  great  importance  of  the  family  and  of  the  individual 
for  modern  liberty,  and  the  difference  of  the  latter  in  this  re- 
gard from  the  liberty  of  the  ancients,  has  been  dwelt  upon  at 
length  in  the  Political  Ethics. 


PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR.  91 

rests  on  these  two  points,  that  a  just  regard 
for  man's  dignity  prompts  us  to  adopt  some 
prospective  and  retrospective  measures  re- 
specting him,  although  he  does  not  yet  ex- 
ist, or  exists  no  more  ;  and  that  we  are 
bound  to  honour  feelings  of  great  impor- 
tance to  mankind,  by  imbodying  our  respect 
in  positive  laws.  Yet  none  of  these  meas- 
ures may  be  deducible  from  the  postulates 
of  politics  with  geometrical  strictness  or 
a   logical   symmetry.'     The    protection   af- 

'  There  can  be  rio  doubt  but  that  every  good  and  pure  citi- 
zen is  bound  to  assist  in  bringing  offenders  to  condign  pun- 
ishment, and  especially  to  state,  if  called  upon  as  a  witness, 
all  that  he  knows  of  the  offence  ,  and,  farther,  that  the  welfare 
of  the  country  and  society  at  large  is  superior  to  that  of  the 
family.  Yet,  in  spite  of  these  truths,  most,  perhaps  all,  the 
lately  enacted  codes  exempt  near  relations  from  this  painful 
duty,  on  the  ground  that  kindly  feelings  towards  relations  are 
of  great  importance  to  society,  and  the  citizen  ought  not  to  be 
forced  to  violate  them.  Other  codes  distinctly  exempt  citi- 
zens from  the  duty  of  informing  against  a  committed  crime, 
on  the  ground  that  our  best  feelings,  which  ought  not  to  be 
outraged,  revolt  in  many  cases  against  informing.  In  short, 
we  do  not  deal  in  politics  with  an  abstract  notion  called  man, 
but  with  a  living  compound  of  body,  mind,  affection,  and  ap- 
petite. "  Civil  knowledge  is  conversant  about  a  subject 
which,  above  all  others,  is  ma«t  immersed  in  matter,  and  hard- 
liest  reduced  to  axiqni." — Bacon. 


92  PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR. 

forded  by  the  laws  to  the  unborn  infont  is 
perhaps  the  most  striking  instance;  that  can 
be  given.  To  have  personal  rights,  there 
must  be  a  person,  that  is,  a  human  indi- 
vidual with  reason  and  responsibility.  Ani- 
mals have  no  rights,  having  no  responsibility. 
Still  we  protect  man  when  not  yet  born 
and  only  forming  a  part  of  the  mother  ; 
and  we  punish  offences  of  that  mother 
against  part  of  herself  when  she  uses  vio- 
lence against  her  own  fruit.  We  allow  no 
'>ne  to  kill  an  idiot,  although  he  may  have 
5unk  below  the  capacity  of  superior  animals, 
ind  be  without  any  responsibility.  We  re- 
.tpect  the  memory  of  a  man,  and,  in  most 
civilized  countries,  actions  of  slander  against 
he  honour  and  reputation  of  a  deceased  fa- 
irer may  be  sustained;  yet  the  father,  no 
1  )nger  living,  can  no  longer  be  injured,  and, 
pjoperly  speaking,  where  there  is  no  injury, 
tl-ere  can  lie  no  action.' 

'  The  sons  of  Fouche,  duke  of  Otranto,  gained  an  action 
against  a  publisher  for  issuing  a  book  in  which  iheir  father 
was  called  a  traitor  upon  unsustained  reports.  If  I  remembei 
right,  the  action  was  brought  only  for  the  suppression  of  the 
eale  of  that  book. 


PKOPERTY    AND    LABOUR.  93 

In  the  case  of  bequeathing,  or  of  leaving 
the  property  to  the  nearest  relations  if  no 
will  is  made,  we  honour,  even  after  death, 
the  right  which  the  individual  had  when  liv- 
ing, of  freely  disposing  of  his  own,  one  of 
the  most  precious  boons  of  freedom.  We 
confirm  and  elevate  thereby  the  institution 
of  the  family,  which  is  one  of  the  primitive 
fountains  of  all  civilization  ;  and,  by  re- 
specting the  will  of  the  deceased,  we  show, 
as  well  as  by  the  protection  of  rights  before 
the  individual  is  born,  that  wc  acknowledge 
the  continuity  and  importance  of  the  politi- 
cal society  to  which  we  belong,as  an  organic 
whole,  of  which  we  are  but  passing  mem- 
bers, and  not  merely  as  an  accidental  mass  of 
huddled  units.' 

•  The  question,  is  the  Slate  nothing  more  than  an  associa- 
tion for  the  purpose  of  mutual  protection  against  bodily  harm, 
or  is  it  a  society  with  its  peculiar  character  and  a  iiigh  desti- 
ny of  its  own,  is  of  radical  importance  in  discussing  the  politi- 
cal relations  of  man.  I  have  repeatedly  treated  of  it  in  my 
work  on  Political  Ethics,  and  will  only  add  here  that  the  sub- 
ject of  Bequest  is  of  very  great  importance  in  this  politico- 
ethical  point  of  view,  and  of  far  deeper  and  more  philosophi- 
cal import  than  those  believe  who  assume  that  nothing  is  phil- 
osophical which  cannot  be  proved  according  to  the  most  ap- 
parent and  the  grossest  interests  of  men. 


94 


J'ROPr.RTV    AND    i.ABorn. 


Some  additional  Remarks  on  Accumulation^ 
and  on  Security  of  Property. 
The  three  elements,  or,  rather,  factors  of 
that  product  which  we  call  national  wealth, 
or  the  aggregate  of  all  values  possessed 
by  the  individuals  of  a  nation,  are  industry, 
frugality,  and  security.  Without  either  of 
these  the  wealth  of  a  nation  will  not  in- 
crease ;  and  to  their  increase,  Avithin  the  last 
two  or  three  centuries,  are  owing  the  vast 
increase  of  diffused  wealth  of  the  Western 
race,  the  great  amount  of  capital  possessed 
by  that  race,  which  other  nations  of  antiquity 
have  never  acquired,  and  the  elevated  stand- 
ard of  comfort  of  the  great  mass  of  people.' 

'  Many  declamations  are  made  on  increased  luxury  and 
universal  ruin.  That  peculiar  circumstances  at  times  produce 
evil  habits  of  luxury  and  dissipation  no  one  will  deny  ;  but 
none  acquainted  with  details  and  history  will  gainsay  that  habits 
of  frugality  have  vastly  increased,  while,  as  one  of  their  effects 
and  most  desirable  blessings,  the  universal  standard  of  com 
fort  has  been  greatly  heightened.  The  waste  during  the  many 
former  court-feasts,  even  of  the  smallest  courts,  and  the  prodi^ 
gal  manners  of  a  great  part  of  the  nobility,  are  well  known  to 
the  reader  of  works  which  contain  historical  curiosities,  and 
contrast  strongly  with  the  great  frugality,  if  we  speak  compar- 


PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR.  95 

Without  industrious  exchange  on  the  one 
hand,  and  security  of  property  on  the  other, 
property  caiuiot  accumulate  to  any  great 
amount ;  yet,  we  have  seen  before,  it  is  only 
accumulated  values  or  capital  which  can 
pay  for  the  personal  labour  of  those  who, 
with  sound  limbs  and  a  fair  skill,  are  desi- 
rous to  work,  and,  if  possible,  to  save  of  their 
wages  some  small  amount,  which  they,  in 
turn,  may  invest  productively,  and  accumu- 
late as  their  property. 

It  is  universally  acknowledged  that  there 
is  nothing  on  earth  which  can  pay  for  labour 
except  capital.  All  those,  therefore,  who 
have  not  yet  acquired  lasting  property,  are 
deeply  interested  in  the  increase  and  farther 
accumulation  in  general ;  the  poorer  a  man 

atively,  of  modern  courts.  Articles  which  but  a  century  and 
a  half  ago  were  objects  of  great  luxury,  for  instance,  silver 
forks,  silk  gowns,  tea,  or  fine  cloth,  are  now  common;  but 
we  can  afford  it,  owing  to  the  cheaper  production  and  greatly 
more  accumulated  values.  Mankind  are  richer.  Still  it  is  not 
denied  that  fashion,  like  a  ruinous  tyrant,  may  at  times,  in  cer- 
tain places  or  whole  districts,  counteract  ail  industry,  and  pro- 
duce disastrous  effects,  as  it  cannot  be  doubled  that  in  some 
parts  jf  the  United  States  extravagance  in  dress,  furniture,  and 
viands  lately  defeated  very  palpably  the  eflfects  of  industry. 


96  PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR. 

is,  the  more  important  is  general  accumula- 
tion of  wealth  to  him.  His  personal  ser- 
vices cannot  be  of  any  use  to  him,  or  any 
one  else,  if  there  be  not  sufRciently  acc;u- 
mulated  capital  beforeiiand  to  pay  for  them. 
Every  obstruction  to  these  accumulations  or 
their  protection,  every  dissipation  of  them, 
every  withdrawal  of  them  from  the  country 
he  lives  in,  is  necessarily  a  material  injury  to 
his  only  means  of  gaining  a  livelihood,  and 
the  ruin  or  spoliation  of  the  classes  that  hold 
property  is  infallibly  followed  by  the  suffer- 
ing and  degradation  of  the  classes  Avhich 
have  no  property  ;  by  the  poor  and  the  des- 
titute. 

Every  disturbance  of  property  is  a  pro- 
portional blow  to  industry  ;  and  as,  on  the 
one  hand,  the  laws  of  individual  inherit- 
ance are  the  greatest  stimulus  to  the  accu- 
mulation of  property,  one  of  the  most  suc- 
cessful means  to  render  the  individual 
sharpsighted  in  pursuing  industry  and  ac- 
cumulation, and  the  best  safeguard  against 
the  dissipating  of  values  unproductively  ;  so 
would  a  law  against  individual  and  family 


PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR.  97 

inheritance  in  one  country  have  the  infalli- 
ble effect  of  driving  capital  out  of  that  coun- 
try into  others  where  it  would  be  protected. 
The  industrious  would  thus  be  deprived  of 
the  means  which  makes  their  industry  avail- 
able. 

Property  may  be  rendered  insecure  in  a 
great  variety  of  ways ;  by  bad  laws,  by  the 
absence  of  laws,  by  war  or  riots  ;  by  pend- 
ing measures  which  threaten  to  interfere 
with  the  individual  possession  of  property  ; 
by  an  interference  with  free  exchange  of  the 
products  of  the  pursuits  which  each  indi- 
vidual considers  most  fit  for  his  situation, 
talents,  and  skill ;  by  the  elements,  and  by 
anything  which  disturbs  the  fair  trust  and 
confidence  that  we,  and  our  children  after 
us,  shall  enjoy  the  fruits  of  our  endeavours. 
If  exchange,  accumulation,  and  inheritance 
are  disturbed  by  impending  or  actual  meas- 
ures, and  in  general  by  distrust  in  the  fu- 
ture, it  appears  from  the  preceding  passa- 
ges that  no  farther  increase  of  capital  takes 
place,  no  increase  of  population,  no  advance 
of  civilization ;  the  union  of  men,  depend- 


98  PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR. 

ance  of  one  upon  the  other,  trust  and  credit, 
must  be  disturbed  or  wholly  rooted  up,  as 
we  see  it  in  such  fearful  times  as  the  French 
revolution  or  the  Roman  empire ;'  and,  lastly, 
ma-^hinery  cannot  be  invented  and  used  on 
an  extensive  scale  in  such  a  state  of  things. 

•  The  unspeakable  misery  efldured  during  the  Roman  em- 
pire, and  the  retrograde  movement  of  Italy  during  many  peri- 
ods of  those  five  centuries,  were  chiefly  owing  to  the  immense 
dissipation  of  values  by  war,  neglect  of  cultivation,  breaking 
down  of  roads,  extinction  of  herds,  and  by  the  msecure  state 
of  inheritance.  If  men  do  not  know  what  will  become  of 
their  properly,  they  become  reckless  of  their  goods,  as  we 
find  them  reckless  of  life  in  most  periods  of  extensive  pesti- 
lences. Sismondi's  Fail  of  the  Roman  Empire  furnishes 
many  a  material  for  this  reflection.  The  Thirty  Years'  War 
threw  back  Germany  many  years,  and  sapped  her  wealth  to 
an  almost  incredible  extent,  civilization  necessarily  following 
the  retrograde  movement  of  property.  The  destruction  of  val- 
ues, accumulated  during  centuries,  in  that  sad  period  of  Ger- 
man history,  the  abandonment  of  culture,  of  roads  and  mills, 
and  the  recklessness  engendered  by  the  insecurity  of  prop- 
erty, appear  with  their  appalling  truth  by  a  study  of  detailed 
accounts  and  chronicles.  A  country  sinks  to  its  lowest  mis- 
ery when  protracted  fanatical  wars  break  up  property  and  the 
means  of  supporting  labour,  to  such  a  degree  that  the  mass 
of  the  people  find  it  easier  to  join  the  destroyers  of  the  only 
lasting  support  of  those  that  live  by  their  labour ;  thus  swell- 
ing the  tide  of  general  destruction,  and  diminishing  still  more 
the  existing  means  of  support.     The  French  religious  wars 


PROPERTY    AXD    LABOUR.  99 

Yet  machinery  is  the  greatest  means  of 
Srtving  labour,  or  of  using  far  less  labour  to 
effect  the  same  product,  and  of  using  that 
labour  which  now  is  saved  for  the  produc- 
tion of  other  articles  or  the  purchase  of  other 
objects.  Machinery  thus  elevates  the  stand- 
ard of  comfort,  respectability,  and  morality, 
of  knowledge,  science,  and  civilization  in 
general,  and  makes  it  possible  to  support  a 
far  greater  population. 

Without  machinery  every  populous  coun- 
try (for  even  then  population  will,  in  most 
cases,  slowly  increase  in  the  course  of  cen- 
turies) must  sink  into  that  state  in  which 
we  find  China,  wiiere  almost  every  one  of 
that  enormous  population  of  three  hundred 
and  sixty  millions  of  human  beings  is  most 
laboriously  working,  far  more  so  even  than 
the  industrious  white  race  in  Europe  or 
North  America,  merely  to  obtain  the  scan- 
tiest food  and  simplest  raiment,'  and  in  which 
no  values  can  be  saved  for  hospitals,  asy- 

afHicted  France  in  a  similar  way.     Sully's  Memoirs  contain 
many  proofs  of  this. 

*  Henry  Ellis,  in  his  Journal  of  the  Embassy  to  China  un» 


100        PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR. 

lunis  for  Ihc  blind  or  deaf  and  diinrib,  oi 
for  extensive  scientific  pursuits,  and  in  which 
every  public  calamity  immediately  disturbs 
the  nicely-balanced  state  of  things,  and  ex- 
poses thousands  upon  thousands  to  starva- 
tion.' 

When  a  machine  is  invented  many  peo- 
ple are  thrown  out  of  employ,  and  very 
frequently  exposed  to  suffering  or  evea 
wretchedness.  No  one  will  deny  the  fact ; 
but  this  is  an  inconvenience  which  the  state 
ought  to  strive  to  counteract  by  wise  meas- 
ures as  much  as  possible.     It  is  no   argu- 

der  Lord  Amherst,  mentions  several  times  the  great  many 
eating-houses  in  every  Chinese  city,  where  the  labourers  ob- 
tairj  their  meals  for  tickets  in  which  they  are  paid  by  iheii 
employers,  and  in  which  frequently  the  whole  wages  consist. 
'  See  Gutzlaff  in  many  places.  Gulzlaif  likewise  mentionfc 
repeatedly  that  millions  and  millions  are  ready  to  work  sim- 
ply for  their  bare  subsistencj^e  upon  rice.  It  would  seem  that, 
besides  the  many  more  advantageous  circumstances  in  which 
the  American  farmer  is  placed,  his  more  rapid  accumulation 
of  wealth  than  that  of  the  Chinese,  although  the  Americau 
consumes  far  more,  must  be  in  part  attributed  to  his  infinitely 
more  perfect  implements,  and  implements  are  in  their  charactei 
machines.  At  least  so  it  appears  if  we  examine  the  agricul- 
tural implements  in  Mr.  Dunn's  Chinese  Museum,  and  then 
enter  a  shop  where  our  farming  utensils  are  sold. 


PROPERTY    AND    ).AB0'ii11.'  101 

ment  against  the  immense  ailvariftaf^eis  ob- 
tained by  machinery  for  the  poorer  classes 
themselves,  and,  moreover,  it  is  no  argu- 
ment which  applies  solely  to  machinery,  but 
would  hold  against  every  sort  of  saving  la- 
bour. 

Yet  what  is  the  whole  course  of  indus- 
try but  a  continued  exertion  to  save  la- 
bour ?  If  we  should  use  the  bare  hands  to 
till  a  field,  far  more  people  would  be  ne- 
cessary than  now,  when  we  have  the  spade 
and  the  plough.  These  people,  however, 
would  live  wretchedly,  and  incomparably 
ess  soil  would  be  under  cultivation;  con- 
sequently, far  less  people  supported  than 
at  present.  Before  regular  mails  were  es- 
tablished, there  were  periodical  messengers 
between  Paris,  where  many  German  youth 
pursued  their  studies,  and  several  parts  of 
Germany.  These  messengers  were  necessa- 
rily thrown  out  of  employ  when  that  vast  la- 
bour-saving machine,  the  post  establishment, 
was  instituted.  Yet  how  many  millions  of 
people  now  find  employment  directly  or  in- 
directly through  the  post  estabhshracnt  for 


10^  Pn.de7^RTY    AND    LABOUR. 

the  benefit  of  human  society  ?  How  much 
does  the  Post  increase  industry  and  the  val- 
ue of  all  products  ?  Roads  are  labour-saving 
machines,  and,  when  first  made,  they  fre- 
quently throw  many  people  out  of  employ. 
We  find  that  there  were  many  riots  in  Eng- 
land under  the  administration  of  Walpole? 
because  application  had  been  made  to  Par- 
liament for  the  establishment  of  an  extensive 
system  of  turnpike  roads.  Now,  however, 
a  highly-distinguished  writer,  Mr.  Dupin, 
shows,  as  one  of  the  reasons  of  England's 
superior  wealth,  the  immense  extent  of  roads 
and  canals  in  proportion  to  her  territory,  if 
compared  to  other  countries.' 

'  Charles  Dupin,  Productive  and  Commercial  Forces  of 
France,  Paris,  1828.  The  same  argument  might  now  be  ap- 
plied to  the  introduction  of  railroads.  The  rent  of  a  great 
many  inns  has  been  lowered  by  them,  and  many  thousands 
of  horses  have  been  thrown  out  of  employ.  But  all  the  corn, 
consumed  formerly  by  these  horses  in  order  to  transport  a  far 
smaller  amount  of  goods  and  passengers  in  a  much  longer 
time,  can  now  be  used  to  feed  an  additional  number  of  men, 
and  the  traveller  can  do  the  business,  in  many  cases,  in  a  day, 
for  which,  but  sixty  years  ago,  l,e  would  have  wanted  a  week. 
He  can  therefore  use  the  rest  of  the  week  in  farther  pursuit 
of  industry. 


PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR.        103 

There  is  probably  no  more  striking  exam- 
ple of  the  benefit  bestowed  upon  mankind 
by  machinery  than  the  invention  of  the  print- 
ing-press. A  single  work  employed  many 
more  hands,  or  the  same  number  for  a  far 
longer  time,  when  books  were  copied  ;  yet 
thousands  of  people  are  now  employed  by 
the  press  where  but  tens  found  a  living  by 
copying,  because  machinery  lowers  the  price, 
and,  consequently,  increases  consumption 
and  demand.  It  is  the  same  with  the  cot- 
ton-mills. A  piece  of  cotton  goods  re- 
quires more  labour  if  produced  by  the  hand- 
loom  ;  yet  machinery  has  lowered  the  price 
of  calico  so  much  that  millions  can  use  it 
and  decently  dress  themselves  who  before 
were  doomed  to  go  in  rags ;  and  this  vastly 
increased  demand  makes  the  employment  of 
hundreds  of  thousands  possible  in  weaving  it 
by  machinery,  while  in  our  country  it  has 
increased  wealth  by  the  culture  of  cotton.' 

■  Our  age  is  frequently  called  the  age  of  machinery,  not 
without  a  sneer,  or  in  order  to  indicate  that  it  is  a  peculiarly 
maierial,  and  not  an  intellectual  one.  But  what  is  machinery, 
if  not  an  evidence  of  the  empire  of  mind  over  brute  matter  ? 


104        PROPERTY  AXD  LABOUR. 

To  recapitulate,  then,  mach'  ^ry  is  neces- 
sary for  an  advanced  state  cJ  society,  and 
machinery  requires  accumulative  property, 
which  cannot  accumulate  without  security. 

What  is  the  invention  of  James  Watt  but  a  most  illustrious 
victory  of  mind  over  matter  1  What  is  Fulton's  invention  1 
If  the  employment  of  labour  were  the  object,  and  not  produc- 
tion, and  consequent  increase  of  comfort,  peace,  and  civiliza- 
tion, it  is  clear  that  the  Bostonians  ought  not  to  fetch  their 
granite  from  Quincy,  but  from  a  distant  place,  in  order  to  em- 
ploy more  labour.  Why  does  every  man  wish  to  have  a  well 
in  his  yard  1  Because  he  desires  to  have  the  indispensable 
article  water  with  as  little  trouble,  that  is,  with  as  little  em- 
ployment of  labour  as  possible.  We  have  but  to  look  around 
us  in  our  nearest  circles,  and  everywhere  we  find  man  most 
wisely  and  instinctively  engaged  in  abbreviating  labour.  A 
book  worthy  of  perusal  in  this  as  in  many  other  respects  is  the 
Life  of  James  Watt,  by  Mr.  Arago,  translated,  3d  edit.,  Edin- 
burgh, 1839.  Tliere  are  also  London  editions.  Very  judi- 
cious remarks  on  this  subject  are  also  to  be  found  in  R.  Tor- 
rens.On  Wages  and  Combinatii  a,  Lond.,  1834,  p.  37  and  seqq. 


IV. 

On  the  Supposed  Original  Community  of 
Property. 

In  ancient  as  well  as  modern  times  it  has 
been  frequently  supposed  that  there  was  an 
age  Avhen  all  things  belonged  to  all  men, 
and  that  originally  the  earth,  and  all  that  is 
in  and  upon  it,  was  first  given  by  the  com- 
mon Maker  to  mankind  at  large,'  or  claim- 
ed by  the  Reason  of  man  as  common  prop- 
erty. When  this  idea  was  once  adopted, 
the  inference  was  natural  that  individual 
property  had  been  introduced  by  violence 

'  The  argument  has  also  been  used,  that  man,  being  a 
creature  of  God  as  well  as  all  the  other  objects  of  creation,  it 
results  that  all  creatures  are  His,  and  man  can  have  no  right 
of  property  unless  God  gives  it  to  him.  He,  however,  it  was 
maintained,  gave  all  things  to  men,  and  no  particular  things 
to  any  particular  men.  The  sequel  will  show  that  the  author 
holds  this  theological  view  unfounded  in  Scripture,  as  the  pre- 
ceding passages  must  have  shown  that  he  does  not  consider  it 
to  be  founded  in  reason. 

I 


106  PROPERTY    AND    LADOJIR. 

and  oppression  on  the  one  hand,  or,  on  the 
other,  by  the  lawful  desire  to  obtain  protec- 
tion against  th's  oppression,  which  had  al- 
ready disturocd  the  original,  and.  as  it  was 
assumed,  happy  community  of  property. 

It  is  not  always  easy  to  ascertain  what 
sort  of  community  is  meant  when  writers 
on  the  subject  of  property  use  the  term. 
Sometimes  their  arguments  would  lead  us 
to  suppose  that  the  prevailing  idea  of  their 
minds  is  a  supposed  state  of  things  when 
everything  belonged  to  every  one  ;  at  other 
times  it  seems  that  they  mean  a  community 
of  property  within  a  certain  tribe,  clan,  or 
nation,  but  a  distinct  separation  of  this  bulk 
of  property  from  that  of  other  tribes.  Again, 
we  find  speculations  founded  upon  the  sup- 
posed original  community  of  property,  bu( 
are  not  told  whether  it  be  assumed  to  have 
extended  to  all  that  man  can  claim  as  hia 
own,  to  garments,  implements,  and  weap- 
ons, to  the  produce  of  the  chase,  fishing, 
and  the  first  rude  attempts  at  agriculture,  or 
to  the  possession  of  ^and  only.  Very  fre- 
quently the  latter  only  is  supposed,  and  an 


PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR.        107 

absolute  individual  right  of  property  is  con- 
ceded to  the  products  of  individual  indus- 
try ;  yet,  strange  to  say,  we  meet  sometimes 
with  arguments  against  the  right  of  be- 
queathing individual  property,  of  whatever 
sort  this  may  be,  deduced,  nevertheless, 
from  the  hypothesis  of  an  original  commu- 
nity of  property  extending  to  the  soil  only. 

Owing  to  the  distinction  made  by  former 
writers  between  the  title  of  property  in  the 
products  of  individual  industry  and  in  land, 
it  was  either  found  very  difficult  to  show 
how  a  perfect  title  of  property  could  accrue 
out  of  a  mere  priority  of  occupancy  of  that 
which  was  believed  to  belong  to  all,  or  it 
was  maintained  that  property  in  the  prod- 
ucts of  industry  is  perfect  according  to  the 
law  of  nature,  but  that  property  in  the  soil  is 
absolutely  made  by  municipal  laws.  Mr. 
Dugald  Stewart,  one  of  the  latest  English 
philosophers,  makes  this  distinction.'  But 
in  doing  so,  it  seems  that  he  falls  into  that 
inconsistency  in  which  all  who  before  him 

'  Supplement  to  chapter  second,  book  fourth,  of  D.  Stew- 
art's Philosophy  of  the  Active  and  Moral  Powers  of  Man. 


108        PROPERTY  AND  LADOUR. 

have  adopted  this  distinction  have  become 
entangled,  that  while  he  denies  the  original 
right  of  individual  property  in  the  soil,  he 
forgets  that  he  denies  it  likewise  to  any  spe- 
cific society — a  tribe  or  state,  which  needs 
must  have  the  right  of  property  in  the  soil 
in  order  to  make  those  municipal  laws  upon 
which,  according  to  him,  all  individual  titles 
of  property  can  alone  be  founded. 

The  original  question  is  not  whether  A 
or  B  shall  be  the  possessors  of  this  or  that 
specific  patch  of  land.  The  question  is 
whether  there  can  exist  any  exclusive  title 
of  property  in  the  soil.  It  is  very  indif- 
ferent, as  to  this  first  question,  whether 
the  exclusive  possession  forever  is  granted 
to  one,  to  a  few,  to  many,  or  to  a  whole 
nation.  Compared  to  the  rest  of  mankind, 
the  British  nation  is  but  an  individual,  and 
the  exclusiveness  of  its  possession  of  British 
soil,  denying  all  other  nations  any  direct 
share  in  its  use  and  profits,  is  just  as  easy  or 
as  difficult  to  be  proved  as  the  exclusiveness 
of  possession  vested  in  an  individual  man. 
The  exclusive,  permanent,  and  lawful  pes- 


PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR.        109 

session,  whether  shared  by  several  persons 
or  not,  is  the  only  subject  of  importance  in 
discussing  the  original  title  of  property  in 
the  soil.' 

The  causes  which  have  led  man  to  pre- 
sume that  there  existed  originally  a  commu- 
nity of  property,  may  be  chiefly  the  follow- 
ing :  The  fact  that,  when  men  came  to  re- 
flect on  this  subject,  they  actually  observed 
that  many  tribes  seemed  to  hold  at  least  their 
landed  property  in  common,  namely,  all 
those  tribes  which  were  yet  in  the  hunter's 
or  the  nomadic  state.  Secondly,  the  poets, 
who  imagined  that  there  had  existed  a  state 
of  bliss,  when  men  lived  without  labour  or 
toil  of  any  sort,  and,  of  course,  had  every- 

■  '  If  the  views  taken  in  the  previous  essays  be  correct,  the 
distinction  between  the  political  right  of  a  state  or  its  gov- 
ernment over  a  territory,  or  the  right  of  dominion,  and  the  in- 
dividual ownership  in  the  land,  which  is  not  a  thing  made  by 
government,  apfiears  to  be  easy  and  clear.  Government  pro- 
nounces or  sanctions  certain  rules  of  action  for  the  guidance 
of  the  people  who  inhabit  its  territory,  but  it  does  not  necessa- 
rily own  all  the  soil  by  the  title  of  property.  If,  on  the  oth- 
er hand,  property  be  the  creature  of  government,  the  propel 
distinction,  it  would  seem,  cannot  be  made,  and  we  must  neces- 
sarily involve  o  irselves  continually  in  inextricable  difficulties. 


110        PROPERTY  AXD  LABOUR. 

thing  in  common,  because  there  ivns  no  ob- 
ject in  possessing  anything  in  particular. 
Thirdly,  that,  as  has  been  observed  already, 
men  are  ever  prone  to  ascribe  distinct  insti- 
tutions to  as  distinct  acts  of  invention  ;  peo- 
ple, therefore,  seeing  that  property  was  dis- 
tributed among  men,  thought  that  at  some 
time  or  other  a  division  had  taken  place,  and 
did  not  perceive  that  all  property  is  the  joint 
and  gradual  effect  of  the  appropriation,  pro- 
duction, exchange,  and  accumulation  of  val- 
ues. Fourthly,  the  ownership  in  the  soil,  as 
it  now  stands,  has  in  many  countries,  perhaps 
in  nearly  all  the  most  civilized  ones,  actually 
arisen  out  of  conquest,  the  breaking  up  of 
the  Roman  empire  by  invading  tribes,  when, 
indeed,  a  parcelling  out  of  the  soil,  to  a  very 
great  extent,  by  the  conquerors  among  them- 
selves took  place.  Fifthly,  it  was  believed 
that  the  view  of  the  ancients  was  strongly 
supported  by  the  bible,  wherein  it  v/as  sup- 
posed it  was  distinctly  said  that  originally  all 
the  earth  was  given  to  all,  and  that,  conse- 
quently, if  there  now  exists  individual  prop' 
erty,  it  must  needs  have  been  produc-ed  by 


PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR.        Ill 

a  preceding  division.  Lastly,  there  are 
certain  peculiar  qualities  inherent  in  the 
property  in  land  which  promoted  these 
views. 

It  has  been  already  stated  that  the  fact 
of  a  community  of  certain  property,  espe- 
cially of  land,  existing  with  some  tribes,  or, 
perhaps,  with  most,  at  a  certain  stage  of  civ- 
ilization, proves  nothing  against  the  right  of 
individual  property.  The  original  question 
is.  Can  there  be  any  such  thing  as  individ- 
ual property  in  soil  according  to  sound  rea- 
son and  the  immutable  principles  of  right  ? 
The  next  question  is,  Is  it  expedient  that 
land  should  be  held  by  individual  titles  of 
property,  like  other  things  or  moveables,  or 
would  it  not  be  preferable  to  return  to  a 
community  of  property  in  the  soil  forming 
the  territory  of  some  extensive  society,  espe- 
cially of  a  sovereign  society  or  state  ?  We 
have  already  seen  that  as  to  the  matter  of 
right,  the  property  in  the  soil  claimed  by  a 
whole  clan  or  tribe  is  as  individual  a  spe- 
cies of  property,  with  reference  to  all  the 
rest  of  mankind   excluded  from  it,  as  the 


112 


PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR. 


ownership  of  land  vested  in  a  single  indi- 
vidual is  with  reference  to  the  rest  of  his 
tribe  or  nation. 

The  chief  instances  usually  adduced  to 
prove  that  individual  property  in  the  soil  is 
a  late  abuse,  introduced  by  violence  or  cu- 
pidity under  the  artificial  systems  of  gov- 
ernment belonging  to  degenerate  times,  are 
the  common  hunting  tribes  of  the  North 
American  Indians ;  Caesar's  mention  that 
private  and  separate  property  in  the  soil  was 
unknown  to  the  Germans;'  that  the  patri- 
archs moved  with  their  herds  freely  whith- 
ersoever they  listed  ;  and  that  even  the  reg- 
ular system  of  the  Jewish  government,  pro- 
ceeding from  the  highest  of  all  authorities, 
recognised,  to  a  certain  extent,  a  communi- 
ty of  property,  inasmuch  as  the  Hebrew  laws 
forestalled  alienation  and  consequent  accu- 

'  Comment.,  iv.,  c.  i.  At  the  time  of  Casar  the  Germans 
chiefly  occupied  themselves  with  grazing  (on  the  common 
meadows  and  in  the  common  forests).  So  soon  as  ihe  groimd 
was  more  industriously  tilled,  separate  property  arose  ;  henc« 
the  fact  that  the  Franks  in  Gaul  had  more  separate  property, 
allodium,  because  they  were  obliged  to  rely  more  on  tilling 
the  ground  than  on  grazing  cattle. 


PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR.        113 

miilation  of  this  species  of  property  by  the 
year  of  Jubilee,  when  "  ye  shall  return  ev- 
ery man  unto  his  possession,'"  that  is,  into 
his  original  patrimonial  possession  of  land 
or  family  estate;  for  "  the  land  shall  not  be 
sold  forever :  for  the  land  is  mine  :  for  ye 
are  strangers  and  sojourners  with  me."^ 

An  attentive  consideration  of  these  cases 
will  show  us  that  the  Indians,  the  patri- 
archs, who  were  chiefs  or  sheiks  of  wan- 
dering hordes,  and  the  Germans  in  the 
early  ages,  always  acted  upon  the  principle 
that  a  man  might  convert  to  his  own  uses 
that  which  was  before  unappropriated,  and 
claim  it  as  exclusively  his  own.  But  man 
only  appropriates  that  which  has  a  value  in 
his  eyes  :  to  the  Indian,  land  is  worthless 
excepting  as  a  hunting-ground.  He  has  in- 
dividually neither  claim  nor  possession,  but 
the  tribe  to  which  he  belongs  claims  the 
possession  of  large  districts  of  country  as 
ground  on  which  its  members  are  privileged 
to  follow  the  game,  and  from  which  the 
hunters  of  other  tribes  must  be  excluded. 

>  Leviticus,  XXV.,  13-16.  2  lb.,  xxv.,  23. 


114  I'KOl'KRTY    AXD    LABOUR. 

When,  however,  an  Indian  tribe,  like  the 
Cherokees,  becomes  sensible  of  the  superioi 
advantages  of  the  agricultural  over  the  hunt- 
ing state,  and  turns  its  attention  to  the  cul- 
tivation of  the  soil,  land  beconnes  valuable 
in  proportion  to  its  fertility  and  the  degree 
of  labour  bestowed  upon  it,  and  property 
in  the  soil  itself  is  claimed  by  individuals. 

The  same  remark  may  be  applied  to  the 
patriarchs  of  old.  Land  had  for  them  val- 
ue only  as  pasture-ground ;  as  such  they 
occupied  and  held  it  in  common,  and  any 
stranger  leading  his  herds  to  the  same 
ground,  subsequently  to  this  partial  occupa 
tion,  was  looked  upon  as  a  trespasser. 
Everything,  however,  which  had  individual 
value  in  their  eyes,  their  camels,  horses, 
cattle,  their  tents  and  arms,  they  possessed 
individually. 

The  Germans,  when  Caesar  became  ac- 
quainted with  them,  were  not  an  agricultural 
people,  or,  at  least,  so  unskilled  in  the  art  of 
cultivation  that  their  interest  in  the  soil  was 
always  limited  to  the  growing  crop.  This 
indifference  and  ignorance  of  the  value  of 


PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR.        115 

landed  property  existed  in  full  force  even 
during  the  time  of  Tacitus,  as  may  be  seen 
in  his  description  of  German  manners. 

As  for  the  adduced  custom  of  the  Jews, 
we  must  not  forget  that  the  code  of  no  na- 
tion is  less  fit  to  be  adopted  by  others  than 
the  law  of  Moses,  because  the  object  of  the 
Jewish  scheme  of  government  was  not  only 
peculiar,  but  unique.  The  political  charac- 
ter of  that  government,  indeed  every  rela- 
tion of  right,  was  Avith  the  Jews  subservient 
to  the  one  great  hierarchical  object  of  Is- 
rael. The  whole  frame  of  government, 
from  the  fundamental  idea  that  the  chief 
magistrate  was  Jehovah  himself,  whose  vis- 
ible vicegerent  was  the  high-priest,  to  the 
minutest  detail ;  and  from  the  first  founda- 
tion of  their  government,  which  was  uncon- 
ditional conquest,  to  the  division  and  sub- 
division of  land,  and  the  exclusion  of  the 
tribe  of  Levi  from  all  participation  in  such 
property  ;  everything,  in  short,  which  had 
any  relation  to  the  original  political  organ- 
ization of  their  government,  was  made  sub- 
servient  to  the  one  great  object,  namely, 


116        PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR. 

the  preservation  of  a  belief  in  the  true  God, 
notwithstanding  the  allurements  of  the  pol- 
ytheism of  surrounding  nations,  and  in  spite 
of  the  idolatrous  tendency  of  the  Jews  them- 
selves. 

Yet  it  is  remarkable  that  the  Jews,  having 
once  changed  from  a  nomadic  nation,  which 
they  were  in  the  desert,  to  an  agricultural, 
so  soon  as  firmly  settled  in  Palestine,  seem 
never  before  the  exile  to  have  fully  applied 
either  the  law  enjoining  the  jubilee,  or  the 
total  rest  of  all  tillage  in  every  seventh 
or  sabbatical  year,  although  so  explicitly 
commanded  in  several  places  of  their  code.' 
At  least  this  seems  strongly  to  appear  from 
numerous  passages  in  the  Old  Testament,' 
and  is  the  opinion  of  distinguished  theolo- 
gians.^    The  whole   of  the   country  inhab- 

'  Exodus,  xxiii.,  10,  and  scq.     Levit.,  xsvi.,  8. 

2  1  Kings,  sxi.,  2.  Isaiah,  v.,  8.  2  Chronicles,  xxxvi., 
21.  Levi^icus,  xxvi.,34.  But  in  2  Maccab.,vi.,  49,  it  is  men- 
tioned :  "  But  those  in  Betbzura  could  no  longer  tarry  there- 
in on  account  of  hunger,  for  it  was  the  seventh  year,  in  which 
it  was  law  to  leave  the  fields  barren."  And  Joseph.,  Anliq., 
xiv.,  10,  6. 

3  For  instance.  Dr.  De  Wette,  in  his  Manual  of  Hehro- 


PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR.        117 

ited  by  the  Israelites  was  conquered  in  the 
name  of  Jehovah  ;  the  original  inhabitants 
were  extirpated  in  his  name  ;  in  his  name 
was  the  land  divided,  and  every  title  of  prop- 
erty was  held  as  a  direct  gift  of  that  govern- 
ment ;  and  with  reference  to  all  these  rela- 
tions of  the  land-owner,  the  latter  was  called 
a  stranger  and  a  sojourner  ;  the  land  itself 
Jehovah's.  He,  Jehovah,  in  the  capacity  of 
the  national  God,  monarch,  and  conqueror, 
was  actually,  in  the  Israelitic  scheme  of  hi- 
erarchical politics,  the  only  true,  original, 
and  perpetual  land-owner ;  the  Jews  were 
but  tenants  at  will,  "  sojourners." 

These  peculiar  relations,  however,  do  not 
obtain  Avith  us  any  more  than  numberless 

Judaic  ArchtEology,  2d.  ed.,  1830,  paragraph  153.  In  this 
book  the  preceding  quotations  will  be  found.  It  is  not  a  little 
curious  that  Tacitus  speaks  of  the  Sabbath  and  the  Sabbati- 
cal year  as  believed  to  owe  their  origin  to  idleness.  "  On  the 
seventh  day,  it  is  reported,"  says  Tacitus  (Hist.,  v.,  4),  "that 
they  have  liked  rest,  because  this  day  brought  them  an  end  of 
their  toils  ;  and  when  once  they  had  obtained  a  taste  for  lei- 
sure, the  seventh  year  likewise  had  been  consecrated  to  idle- 
ness." (Dein  blandicnte  inertia,  scptimum  quoque  annum  ig- 
navix  datum.)  So  difficult  it  is  even  for  a  great  observer  to 
Dnderstand  the  institutions  of  distant  nations. 


il8        PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR. 

Other  principles  of  the  Mosaic  code,  which 
are  wholly  inapplicable  to  our  state  of 
things,  or,  if  applied,  would  be  revolting, 
and  throw  us  back  into  a  state  of  barbarity.' 
Poet?  have  repeatedly  indulged  in  descri- 
bing a  primitive  state  of  pure  happiness, 
when  not  only  land  was  held  in  common, 
but  all  property  whatsoever.  It  is  one  of 
the  objects  of  poetry  to  delight,  to  seize  upon 

'  Although  the  Jewish  theory  has  actually  been  adduced  to 
support  the  opinion  that  the  king,  the  vicegerent  of  God,  is 
the  original  and  perpetual  land-owner,  for  instance,  under  Lou- 
is the  Fourteenth,  king  of  France,  it  is  hoped  that  no  refuta- 
tion of  so  extravagant  and  unfounded  a  theory  is  nowadays  ne- 
cessary. In  countries  where  theoretically  the  feudal  principle, 
ihat  the  first  titles  of  property  in  land  flow  from  the  monarch, 
IS  still  maintained,  as  in  England,  he  is  nevertheless  by  no 
means  believed  to  be  the  original  land-owner ;  for  he  derives 
his  title  from  the  common  law  of  the  land,  which  is  not  con- 
sidered his  creature.  We  have  seen  already  how  very  strong 
a  theory  to  the  contrary  Lord  Chatham  maintained  in  Parlia- 
ment. The  same  law  which  theoretically  elevates  the  mon- 
arch so  high,  regardmg  primary  land-titles,  decrees  also  that 
he  cannot  take  the  land  as  he  lists ;  a  law  much  older  than 
the  Norman  Conquest,  and  which  was  accepted  by  William  and 
confirmed  by  Henry,  of  whose  charter  Lord  Lyttlelon  says, 
"By  this  charter  Henry  the  First  restored  the  Saxon  laws  which 
were  in  use  under  Edward  the  Confessor,  and  settled  m  Mag- 
na Charta." 


PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR.        119 

the  indistinct  yearnings  of  the  human  heart, 
and  to  use  them  as  the  means  of  sympathy 
with  its  own  creations,  and,  in  imagination, 
to  carry  out  in  detail,  and  to  represent  Avith 
clearness,  that  which  may  exist  in  the  hu- 
man breast  as  an  undefined  yet  strong  de- 
sire. One  of  these  desires  is  to  be  freed 
from  all  the  toil,  trouble,  pain,  and  misery 
which  ever  surround  us  in  this  world  ;  and 
nothing  can  be  more  natural  than  for  those 
who  possess  a  creative  imagination  to  sing 
in  distinct  Avords,  clothed  in  substantial  im- 
ages, what  the  less  gifted  can  but  breathe 
forth  as  an  indistinct  wish  in  the  sigh  of 
suffering. 

This  world  is  a  world  of  grief;  man  has 
ever  felt  it ;  and  if  the  cheerful  prospect  of  a 
future  world  of  peace  is  not  before  the  eyes 
of  the  sufferer,  he  indulges  at  least  in  the 
pleasing  contemplation  of  a  supposed  past 
world,  when  there  was  not  yet  any  labour— 
the  golden  age  ;  when  the  language  of  man 
did  not  yet  contain  the  two  stern  words  of 
Mine  and  Thine. 

It  is  clear  to  all,  even  the  least  scrutini* 


120        PROPERTr  AND  LABOUR. 

zing,  that  much  of  the  troubled  state  of 
the  human  mind,  of  jealousy,  vice,  and 
crime,  suffering  and  iniquity,  arise  out  of  the 
institution  of  property  and  the  accumulation 
of  riches.  Poetic  minds,  therefore,  readily 
imagined  a  state  of  things  where  this  source 
of  so  much  evil  had  no  existence.  But  it 
happened  in  this  case  as  so  frequently  in 
others  ;  men  well  knew  one  state  of  things 
in  detail,  by  personal  experience  and  reality 
around  them  ;  the  other,  however,  by  their 
fancy  and  in  general  outlines  only. 

They  did  not  see  that,  even  were  such  a 
state  of  universal  community  of  property 
possible,  which  it  is  not,  the  evils  attending 
it,  the  overwhelming  insipidity,  the  stagna- 
tion of  mind,  and  all  the  jealousy  still 'ari- 
sing out  of  the  different  mental,  physical, 
and  moral  individualities,  must  have  been  far 
greater.  Or  must  we  imagine  not  only  an 
absence  of  all  property  in  that  golden  age, 
but  also  men  looking  all  alike,  neither  hand- 
Bom.e  nor  plain,  equally  gifted,  neither  wise 
nor  dull,  and  equally  moral,  neither  gentle 
nor  impetuous  ?'     What  indescribable  dul- 

'  So  nave  most  wars  ol  estetilishcd  uaiions  some  relerenrc 


PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR.        121 

ness  and  barbarous  want  of  all  civilization 
would  this  state  of  things  produce  !  The 
fabled  golden  age,  with  its  absence  of  la- 
bour, is  as  little  founded  as  the  poet's  state 
of  pastoral  innocence  and  happiness.  So 
far  from  this  state  having  ever  existed,  we 
find  that  all  pastoral  tribes  belong  to  the 
most  barbarous  and  vicious.'  Indeed,  it  is 
very  evident  that  the  fancied  state  of  labour- 
less  existence  and  absence  of  exertion  is  the 

to  their  territories.  A  poet  might  imagine  a  state  of  things 
when  there  were  no  national  landmarks,  and,  of  course,  all 
causes  pf  a  territorial  character  for  wars  would  be  removed. 
But  would  wars  really  be  removed  1  Do  not  the  wandering 
tribes  fight  infinitely  more  than  the  settled  ones  1  Precisely 
in  the  same  manner  would  there  be  more  dispute,  jealousy, 
and  want  of  peace  between  individuals  if  the  lines  of  Individ 
ual  properly  within  a  nation  were  erased. 

'  In  the  first  volume  of  the  Political  Ethics,  page  150,  in 
troaling  of  this  fact,  I  have  given  several  instances,  but  ex- 
pressed my  ignorance  of  the  moral  condition  of  the  shepiierds 
forming  a  large  class  of  tho  population  of  Spain.  I  have  since 
met  with  the  following  passage  in  Chateaubriand's  Memoirs  : 
"  The  sprucely-dressed  majo  of  the  Guadalquivir,  with  his 
dagger  in  his  shepherd's  crook,  and  his  hair  confined  in  a  net, 
never  distinguishes  the  thing  from  the  person,  and  reduces  all 
difference  of  opinion  to  the  alternative — kill  or  die."  There 
is  a  similar  remark,  if  I  remember  right,  in  Mr.  Slidell's  work 
on  Spain,  but  I  am  mable  to  turn  to  it  at  this  moment. 
K 


122        PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR. 

creation  of  ages  when  mental  formed  but  a 
minimum,  compared  to  physical  activity. 
But  who  is  there  in  an  intellectual  age  that 
sighs  for  a  listless  existence  ? 

This  view  of  the  poets  became  general, 
and  philosophers  and  historians  adopted  gen- 
erally, as  a  universally  received  fact  and 
without  farther  inquiry,  the  view  that,  as,  for 
instance,  Justin  said,'  "All  things  formed  a 
common  stock  for  all  mankind,  as  the  in- 
heritors of  one  general  patrimony  ;"  or  as 
Cicero  expresses  it  by  comparing  the  world 
to  a  theatre,  in  which  the  seats  are  common 
property,  yet  every  spectator  claims  the  one 
he  occupies  for  the  time  being,  but  no  long- 
er.'^    It  was  believed  that  the  views  of  the 

'  Book  43. 

*  Mr.  Dugald  Stewart  quotes  this  comparison  with  approba- 
tion, as  illustrating  the  fact  that  occupancy  of  common  property 
cannot  produce  a  title  of  individual  property  without  the  aid  of 
municipal  laws.  But  he  forgets  that  the  theatre  is  individual 
property,  common,  indeed,  to  a  certain  number  of  people  (as 
the  ancient  theatres  were  public  buildings),  but  the  number 
is  limited,  and  that,  besides,  the  occupant  claims  his  right 
to  the  seat,  which  he  possesses  for  the  time  being,  by  priority 
of  occupancy  or  temporary  appropriation,  so  long  as  it  is  of 
interest  or  use  to  him,  that  is,  so  long  as  the  performance 


PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR.        123 

ancients  were  coniirmcd  by  the  bible.  Gro- 
tius  says:  "God  gave  to  mankind  in  gen- 
eral, dominion  over  all  the  creatures  of  the 
earth,  from  the  first  creation  of  the  world  ; 
a  grant  which  was  renewed  upon  the  restO' 
ration  of  the  world  after  the  deluge.'"  Upon 
perusing  the  passages  adduced  by  that  great 
jurist,  especially  in  conjunction  with  the 
twenty-eighth  verse  of  the  first  chapter  of 
Genesis,  it  will  appear,  first,  that  nothing 
more  is  expressed  in  them  than  the  right  of 
man  to  use   the  animals  and  fruits  of  the 


lasts.  Mr.  Stewart  then  adds  an  instance  of  his  own,  name- 
ly, a  man  who  rests  himself  in  the  shade  of  a  tree.  It  would, 
he  says,  certainly  be  unjust  'o  claim  the  spot  for  the  same 
purpose  so  long  as  the  first  occupier  rests  there,  but  it  gives 
no  enduring  right  to  the  occupier.  This  instance  serves  to 
show  the  nature  of  temporary  occupancy,  but  not  that  of  prop- 
erty in  law.  If  that  spot  of  ground  was  unappropriated,  and 
the  man  wanted  every  day  to  rest  in  that  shade  from  his  la- 
bour— in  short,  if  he  had  a  permanent  interest  of  enjoyment 
or  use  in  that  spot,  he  had  likewise  the  right  of  appropriating  it 
to  himself;  that  of  exchanging  it  for  another  spot  equally  shady, 
if  his  neighbour  desires  his  spot  for  a  better  use,  and  so  on. 

'  The  Rights  of  War  and  Peace,  book  ii.,  chapter  ii.,  2  ; 
where,  iir  confirmation  of  the  above,  are  quoted  Genesis,  i., 
29,  30,  and  ix.,  2. 


124  niOPERTY    AND    1  ABOLR. 

earth  for  his  sustenance  ;  and,  secondly,  that 
"the  dominion"  which  is  bestowed  upon 
man  does  not  mean  any  general  property, 
but  the  power  which  he,  with  his  superior 
intellect,  will  and  ought  to  exercise  over 
animals  fiercer  or  swifter  than  himself,  and 
the  right  of  appropriation,  or  of  making 
property.  He  shall  "subdue  it,"  that  is, 
make  it  his  own.  The  first,  and,  in  my 
opinion,  the  most  important  of  the  passages 
relating  to  this  subject,  is  the  one  last  ci- 
ted.' It  reads  thus :  "  And  God  blessed 
them  (namely,  the  first  male  and  female)  ; 
and  God  said  unto  them.  Be  fruitful  and 
multiply,  and  replenish  the  earth,  and  sub- 
due it :  and  have  dominion  over  the  fish 
of  the  sea,  and  over  the  fowl  of  the  air,  and 
over  every  living  thing  that  movetii  upon 
the  earth." 

Man  is  here  authorized  and  commanded 
to  subdue,  and  the  authority  of  dominion  is 
given  him ;  not  a  dominion  already  existing, 

'  Genesis,  i.,  28,  which  authority  of  appropriation  is  be- 
stowed immediately  after  the  creation  of  man  a/id  woman, 
related  in  the  preceding  verse. 


PROPERTY  AND  LABOLR.        125 

but  one  vhich  he  has  a  right  and  a  duty  to 
acquire.  For,  what  dominion  would  that  be 
wiiich  has  no  sort  of  power  for  its  exercise  ? 
How  did  Adam  rule  over  a  distant  fish  or  a 
fowl,  whose  existence  he  could  affect  in  no 
manner  whatever  ?  Was  not  the  animal 
roving  through  a  distant  forest,  to  which  the 
first  man  never  penetrated,  far  more  the  ru- 
ler of  that  forest  than  he  himself,  if  actual 
dominion,  and,  still  more,  if  possession  and 
property  had  been  bestowed,  and  not  the 
right  and  power  of  appropriation  and  pro- 
duction, ever  accompanying  man  as  one  of 
his  attributes  whithersover  he  or  his  chil- 
dren should  move  ? 

If  the  whole  earth  was  originally  given  as 
actual  common  property,  by  what  right  docs 
any  individual  or  separate  nation  single  out 
and  appropriate  anything  to  themselves ; 
and  what  sense  can  we  possibly  connect 
with  the  idea  that  the  fish  in  Baffin's  Bay  are 
the  common  property  of  the  Esquimaux,  the 
Briton,  the  Caffre,  and  the  Japanese,  or  that 
it  was  the  common  property  of  the  patri- 
archs or  of  the  first  sons  of  Adam  ?     The 


126        PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR. 

term  property  has  no  meaning  in  these  ca- 
ses. Where  can  any  one  show  even  the 
most  indirect  consent  of  the  united  inhabi- 
tants of  the  earth,  which  might  be  construed 
as  bestowing  upon  a  single  whaling  captain 
the  right  of  making  all  the  whales  he  catch- 
es his  own  or  his  employer's?  No  theory 
ever  so  bold,  no  assumed  tacit  consent,  can 
be  imagined,  even  with  a  stretch  of  our  im- 
agination, to  serve  this  purpose  here. 

If,  however,  the  quoted  passage  of  the  bi- 
ble be  adduced,  as  has  been  done,  to  prove 
that  the  dominion  over  the  soil  itself  was 
never  bestowed,  but  merely  over  the  fruits 
and  animals,  and  that,  consequently,  the 
property  in  land  ought  to  be  held  in  com- 
mon, the  question  again  arises,  Whence  do 
governments  or  nations  hold  the  right  of 
property  in  a  certain  district  —  which,  ac- 
cording to  these  theorists,  ought  to  be  held 
in  common — to  the  exclusion  of  all  other 
nations  ? 

If  the  bible  proves  anything  of  the  kind, 
it  proves  that  w^e  must  never  pass  beyond 
the  hunter's  and  nomadic  state,  and  that  to 


PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR.        127 

this  day  the  New-Zealander  has  as  good  a 
right  in  the  timber  of  all  the  State  of  Maine 
as  he  had  when  it  was  unappropriated,  if  he 
could  have  appropriated  it  to  himself  in 
some  way  or  other.  Those  who  maintain 
that  the  game  and  the  fruits  of  the  earth 
may  be  appropriated  as  individual  property, 
because  they  are  the  effect  of  individual  ex- 
ertion, but  that  land  cannot,  and,  therefore, 
is  either  specifically  bestowed  by  govern- 
ment and  by  positive  law,  or  that  it  ought  to 
be  held  in  common  forever — these  reason- 
ers,  as  I  intimated  before,  take  an  erro- 
neous view  of  property  in  the  soil  and  of 
the  creation  of  value.  The  land  Nvas  not 
made  by  man,  but  the  cultivated  field  is  as 
much  a  product  of  industry  and  ingenuity 
as  the  house  which  is  built  of  appropria- 
ted timber,  or  as  a  cargo  of  dried  codfish. 

The  early-  theologians  thought  that  the 
view  of  an  original  common  property  was 
supported  by  passages  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment, in  which  it  is  related  that  the  first  Chris- 
tians joined  their  property.  It  was  main- 
tained that  holding  individual  property  was 


128        PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR. 

no  sin,  but  it  originated  out  of  sin,  inas- 
much as  the  rapacious  and  the  wiciicd  first 
introduced  private  property,  and  the  good 
were  consequently  obliged  to  protect  them- 
selves. I  have  spoken  elsewhere  of  this 
subject,  and  cited  some  important  passages 
of  renowned  theologians.'  Still  this  view, 
according  to  which  things  unowned  belong 
to  all,  is  not  absolutely  universal,  for  we 
meet  with  passages  in  distant  codes  which 
speak  of  land  belonging  to  no  one.^ 

The  very  term  Property  implies,  as  an 
essential  qualification  of  its  meaning,  a-  high 
degree  of  exclusiveness  and  power  of  the 
owner  over  the  thing  owned.  It  cannot, 
therefore,  be  applied  to  all  ;  and  to  advance 
that  something  belongs  to  all  men,  or  that 
everything  was  given  as  actual  property  to 
the  first  man,  is  slating  a  contradiction  in 
itself.  But  it  implies  no  contradiction  if 
we  say  that  the  necessity  of  the  creation  of 
property  lies  in  the  nature  of  man,  and  that 

1  Political  Ethics,  vol.  i.,  p.  125. 

^  For  instance,  the  Damasat,  the  Buduh  code  of  the  Bur- 
mese, speaks  of  woods  that  belong  to  no  one. 


PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR.        129 

he   carries  along  with  himself  the  inextin- 
guishable necessity,  right,  and  duty  of  ap- 
propriation  and   production,  and  that,  be- 
cause  it    is    natural   to  man,   we  find  the 
trongest  desire  of  property  in  all  periods 
)f  history,  with  all  nations,  and  at  all  ages 
)f  life,  and  in  situations  in  which  it  can  be 
atisfied  only  on  a  most  reduced  scale.' 

'  Children  soon  claim  things  as  their  own,  and  love  to  point 
:ut  a  bed  in  the  garden,  a  flower,  a  fowl  in  the  yard  as  theirs, 
n  many  cases  wholly  independent  of  an  expected  exclu- 
sive use.  But  the  youthful  mind  is  naturally  pleased  in  thus 
seeing  its  individuality  reflected  in  the  material  world 
jrouiid  it.  Children  in  Houses  of  Refuge,  upon  the  cellular 
system  at  night  and  constant  common  labour  during  the  day, 
will  still  delight  in  iiaving  in  their  little  cell  something  they 
can  call  exclusively  their  own.  Prisoners  in  the  penitentiaries, 
monks  in  their  convents,  though  the  order  may  wholly  abol- 
;sh  individual  property  within  itself — even  galley-slaves,  who 
sleep  and  work  in  common,  show  this  original  urgency  in  man 
Dy  contriving  to  save  some  trifle,  very  frequently  without  the 
cast  use,  and  keeping  it  in  a  little  box.  Every  one  who  habit- 
lally  visits  prisons  will  remember  the  little  boxes  of  the  pris- 
iners  or  juvenile  inmates,  which  manifest  the  struggle  of 
:uman  nature  against  that  state  of  things  in  which  it  is  so  sig- 
lally  repressed.  Dr.  Howe,  in  his  Ninth  Annual  Report  to 
the  Trustees  of  the  Massachusetts  Asylum  for  the  Blind, 
slates  of  that  unfortunate  and  interesting  being,  Laura  Bridg- 
man,  who  is  blind,  deaf,  and  dumb,  that  even  she,  who  enjoys 
L 


130        PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR. 

If  the  bible  seems  to  support  the  theory  of 
original  common  property  or  of  its  general 
preferableness,  in  some  passages,  we  ought 
not  to  forget  others  which  indicate  the  con- 
trary. Of  the  six  commandments  wliich, 
to  distinguish  them  from  the  others  of  a  more 
strictly  religious  character,  may  be  called 
ethical,  two  relate  to  the  sacredness  of  pri- 
vate property.  We  should  not  even  covet  our 
neighbour's  property;  and  the  code  of  Moses 
curses  him  that  removes  the  landmark.' 

To  find  how  universal  the  acknowledg- 
ment of  the  right  of  private  property  has  al- 
ways been,  we  have  only  to  examine  the 
political  or  religious  codes  of  any  nation. 
The  most  distant  countries,  and  periods  most 

always  in  comnaon  with  other  inmates  of  the  asylum  all  that  is 
to  be  enjoyed,  and  who  is  so  dependant  in  every  way  upon  oth- 
ers, "  is  fond  of  acquiring  property,  and  seems  to  have  an  idea  of 
the  ownership  of  things  which  she  has  long  since  laid  aside  and 
no  longer  uses."  If  I  remember  right,  the  same  was  ob- 
served in  the  girl  similarly  circumstanced  at  the  Hartford  Asy- 
lum for  the  Deaf  and  Dumb. 

'  Deuteronomy,  xxvii.,  17.  Also  Proverbs,  xxii.,  28  ;  again, 
xxiii.,  10.  Job,  xxiv.,  2. — The  kerma,  or  landmark  of  the 
Greeks,  became  the  altar  of  a  god,  of  Termon  and  the  Romas 
Terminus. 


PROPERTY  AND  LAHOUR.        131 

remote  from  one  another  agree  in  this  point, 
and  never  has  there  existed  an  individual 
desirous  of  performing  great  actions  who 
did  not  feel  obliged  to  respect  this  element 
of  society.  One  of  the  Buduh  command- 
ments against  the  five  chief  sins  is  for  the 
protection  of  property."  The  rules  by  the 
observance  of  which  Timur  the  Conqueror 
says  that  he  became  great,  and  which  he 
lays  down  for  his  successors  to  maintain  that 
greatness,  contain  one  for  the  protection  of 
property,  and  the  punishment  of  robbery  and 
oppression.''     The  Twelve  Tables  of  Rome, 

*  These  five  commandments  are ; 
Thou  shall  not  kill. 
Thou  shalt  not  steal. 
Thou  shalt  not  commit  fornication. 
Thou  shalt  not  lie. 

Thou  shalt  not  drink  intoxicating  liquor. 
See  the  Sacred  and  Historical  Books  of  Ceylon,  &c.,  edited 
by  Edward  Upham,  London,  1833,  vol.  i.,  p.  20,  and  several 
jther  places. 

'  Timur  mentions  in  this  autobiography  twelve  rules,  to  the 
itrict  observance  of  which  he  ascribes  his  success.  We  are 
not  called  upon  here  to  discuss  bow  strictly  be  observed  thetr, 
It  is  sufficient  for  us  to  know  that  even  this  most  mighty  con- 
queror acknowledged  of  how  great  a  practical  and  radical  im- 
portance the  sacredness  of  property  is.     If  a  Timur  acknowl- 


132        PROPERTY  AND  LAUOUR. 

the  early  Greek  laws,  in  short,  all  codes 
might  be  cited. 

As  to  the  fact  that  many  of  the  present 
political  societies  arose  out  of  conquest, 
when  titles  of  property  were  often  violently 
changed,  it  neither  proves  that  government 
makes  property,  nor  that  property  was  held 
at  any  period  in  common,  although  it  may 
at  the  first  glance  appear  to  do  so.  It  has 
been  sufficiently  shown  that  government 
cannot  in  general  make  property ;  it  has 
not  the  power  of  doing  so,  for  property  is 
made  by  appropriation  and  production  ;  but 
it  may  bestow,  confirm,  or  change  titles  to 
property,  and  in  doing  so  it  may  act  ac- 
cording to  justice,  unjustly,  violently,  or 
peaceably,  as  it  may  do  in  performing  any 
other  act.     The  conquerors  of  Gaul,  Spam, 

edges  it,  it  must  be  founded  as  one  of  the  very  elements  in 
human  nature.  The  twelve  rules  of  the  gigantic  conqueror 
may  be  reduced  to,  Administration  of  Impartial  Justice  (rule 
1,  2,  4,  7) ;  Love  of  Truth  (2,  6,  7) ;  Obedience  to  God's 
Commands  and  Esteem  of  Religion  (3,  5,  9,  10,  11,  12); 
Protection  of  Property  (8) ;  Mercy  (4). — They  may  be  found 
in  Mulfazat  Timury,  or  Autobiographic  Memoirs  of  Timur, 
&c.,  transl.  by  Major  Charles  Stewart,  London,  1830,  Orien- 
tal Translation  Fund. 


PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR.        133 

and  Italy  have  at  no  time  conceived  the 
idea  of  common  property,  unless  the  very 
brief  period  between  a  conquest  and  the 
actual  settlement  be  thus  called  ;  but  there 
is  no  student  of  history  who  would  refer  to 
these  conquests  for  a  proof  that  govern 
ments  originate  property.  Indeed,  the  in- 
dividual appears  prominent  in  the  Germanic 
conquests,  which  by  no  means  ended  always 
in  distribution  alone  ;  much  landed  property 
was  violently  seized  by  the  individual,  and 
retained  by  him  without  first  passing  through 
the  act  of  a  general  apportionment. 

Of  certain  Peculiarities  of  Property  in  Land. 

There  are  peculiar  qualities  inherent  in 
the  ownership  of  land  which  have  been  in- 
fluential in  creating  a  belief  that  originally 
landed  property  was  either  held  in  common 
or  as  a  mere  gift  of  government.  Of  these 
qualities  the  following  may  be  remarked  : 

Like  moveable  property,  land  can  be  sur- 
veyed, its  extent  ascertained,  and  its  owner- 
ship established  ;  but,  unlike  moveable  prop- 
erty, it  remains  forever  on  the  same  spot, 


134       PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR. 

and  is  incapable  of  destruction  or  oblitera- 
tion. It  cannot  be  transferred  from  place 
to  place  at  the  option  of  its  owner,  and  this 
incapacity  of  removal  it  shares  in  common 
with  the  unappropriated  sea.  Misled  by 
this  similarity  in  one  respect,  certain  theo- 
rists have  believed  and  asserted  that,  inas- 
much as  the  products  of  the  sea,  and  not 
the  sea  itself,  may  become  private  property, 
so  the  products  of  the  land,  its  trees,  its 
fruits,  and  its  herbage,  may  be  subjected  to 
individual  ownership,  and  not  the  land  it- 
self. But  these  writers,  while  contending 
for  a  community  of  landed  property  with 
reference  to  the  individual  members  of  the 
same  state,  forgot  that  an  extension  of  the 
principle  would  invalidate  the  claim  of  any 
political  society  to  hold  certain  districts  of 
country  to  the  exclusion  of  other  political 
societies,  and  overlooked  the  important  dif- 
ference which  exists  between  land  and  wa- 
ter— the  former  being  susceptible  of  im- 
provement, and  capable  of  being  made  an 
object  of  exchangeable  value.  If  men  could 
build  upon   the  sea,  and  "  curse  him  who 


PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR.        135 

removeth"  the  seamark,  it  cannot  be  doubt- 
ed but  that  we  would  have  private  maritime 
property,  as  we  now  have  private  landed 
property.  Indeed,  appropriation  of  the  sea 
does  exist,  as  far  as  such  appropriation  is 
possible.  Harbours  and  bays  are  admitted 
to  belong,  by  the  law  of  nations,  that  is,  by 
the  common  sense  of  mankind,  to  the  do- 
minion of  whoever  has  sovereign  authority 
over  the  neighbouring  land. 

The  durable  nature  of  land  causes  it  to 
pass  through  a  longer  series  of  owners  than 
other  objects  of  property,  and  the  connex- 
ion existing  between  a  government  and  its 
territory  necessarily  exposes  the  title  of 
landed  property,  in  the  course  of  years,  to 
those  violent  actions,  such  as  conquest  or 
revolution,  which  affect  the  right  of  owner- 
ship. The  paramount  law  of  necessity  also 
causes  the  state  to  interfere  more  frequent- 
ly and  directly  with  the  ownership  or  trans- 
fer of  this  species  of  property  than  of  any 
other  ;  so  that  the  original  appropriation  of 
land  is  involved  in  more  obscurity  than  that 
of  things  more  recently  appropriated  by  us, 


136        PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR. 

or  of  tilings  produced  by  us,  in  which  the 
substance  upon  which  we  have  conferred 
additional  value  by  our  labour  is  less  promi- 
nent, or  the  productive  agency  of  nature 
less  apparent  than  it  is  in  the  case  of  land 
to  which  cultivation  has  given  value. 

Of  the  Lapse  of  Land  into  an  Unappropria 
ted  State. 

Soil,  or  the  existence  of  land,  outlasts  all 
the  vast  changes  of  institutions  and  opinions 
through  which  mankind  pass  in  the  course  of 
centuries,  and  many  of  which  destroy  the 
societies  \i^hich  owned  the  land,  or  the  ob- 
jects for  which  it  was  given  by  individuals  or 
granted  by  public  authority.  It  is  evident, 
therefore,  that,  in  the  long  lapse  of  time, 
property  in  land  must  be  peculiarly  subject 
to  those  changes  which  are  made  on  the 
ground  of  superior  necessity,  and  the  ulti- 
mate and  sovereign  demand  that  man,  ac- 
cording to  his  nature  and  destiny,  must  live 
in  society,  and  that,  if  other  interests  clash 
with  this  high  destiny,  they  must  yield.  It 
is  a  demand  of  man's  nature  that  he  should 


PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR.        137 

live  in  political  societies,  and,  if  other  inter- 
ests are  made  subordinate  to  this  ultimate 
and  sovereign  demand,  it  is  done  upon  the 
same  ground  upon  which  the  Roman  law 
admits  the  otherwise  unauthorized  appro- 
priation of  another  man's  private  property 
in  case  of  absolute  necessity,  for  instance, 
the  appropriation  of  another  man's  stores 
in  case  of  actual  starvation.' 

Changes  of  property,  having  become  ne- 
cessary on  this  ground,  may  be  threefold : 
The  owner  may  totally  vanish  ;  for  instance, 
when  the  Reformation  was  introduced  in 
some  countries,  monasteries  which  held  land 
were  extinguished  :  or  the  object  for  which 
it  was  given  may  be  extinguished,  and 
yet  the  property  may  have  been  held  in 
trust  for  that  sole  purpose  ;  as  when  the 
revenue  of  some  land  was  destined,  without 
any  contingent   condition,   for   the  reading 

'  See  the  Carolina,  or" Penal  Code  of  Charles  the  Fifth  for 
Germany,  art.  166.  Mittermayer's  Manual  by  Feuerbach, 
13th  ed.,  p  454.  The  English  law  does  not  allow  appropria* 
tion  in  this  case  ;  but,  of  course,  a  jury  would  allow  the  rea- 
Bon  to  have  proper  weight 


138  PROPERTY    AND    LA DOUR. 

of  Masses  for  some  deceased  person,  and  a 
change  of  religion  abolishes  them,  or  when 
the  state  actually  declares  the  object  un- 
lawful :'  or  property  may,  by  some  special 
abuse  or  not,  have  become  so  concentrated, 
or  have  assumed  so  peculiar  a  form,  that  it 
militates  against  the  safety  and  peace,  or 
against  some  other  elementary  principle  of 
the  state.^ 

In  these  cases  it  is  seen  that  disimpropria- 

*  When  pious  men  in  Spain  left  property  for  the  purpose 
of  redeeming  christian  slaves  from  bondage  in  the  Barbary 
Slates,  and  these  give  up  their  piratical  expeditions ;  or  if 
property  is  left  for  lectures  on  a  certain  subject,  which  an  im- 
proved state  of  knowledge  erases  from  the  catalogue  of  sci- 
ences, it  is  clear  that  the  property  must  be  apportioned  oth- 
erwise. 

8  For  instance,  when,  at  the  time  of  the  Gracchi,  landed 
jiroperty  in  Italy  had  become  concentrated  in  comparativelj 
a  few  vast  plantations,  called  latifundia,  from  which  the  most 
important  class  in  any  free  and  well-regulated  community,  the 
c>ass  of  small  farmers,  had  vanished,  and  the  lands  of  which 
were  converted  to  pasture-grounds  because  slave-labour  was 
Jound  to  be  more  profitably  employed  in  the  management  of 
herds  and  flocks  than  in  tillage  ;  or  when,  in  consequence  of 
former  prevailing  religious  views,  landed  property  had  accu- 
mulated in  the  hands  of  the  church  to  such  an  extent  that  it 
*ecame  wholly  incompatible  with  the  welfare  of  the  state,  as 
France  or  Spain  before  their  revolutions. 


PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR.        139 

tion,  if  I  may  use  the  word,  may  take  place 
of  itself,  by  the  extinction  of  owners,  or  of 
the  causes  which  gave  definite  character  to 
the  property ;  and  either  already  existing 
laws  may  forthwith  appropriate  the  same 
anew,  or  specific  laws  may  be  made  for  it 
by  a  society  already  far  advanced  in  civil- 
ization ;  or  the  owners  may  be  despoiled 
either  by  a  law  or  a  revolution,  embracing 
this  as  well  as  other  forcible  changes.  In 
this  case  we  must  not  forget  that  it  is  a 
violent  change,  which  it  is  admitted  may 
become  necessary,  in  a  like  manner  as 
conquest  may  become  necessary,  which  can- 
not either  be  adopted  as  the  rule,  or  be  ad- 
duced as  confirming  the  belief  that  property 
is  always  held  as  a  boon  of  government,  or 
that  property  was  originally  held  in  com- 
mon. 

If  a  revolution  wrests  property  from  its 
owner,  the  despoiler  forthwith,  and  general- 
ly by  the  same  act  which  etl'ects  the  spolia- 
tion, appropriates  the  soil.'     It  is  therefore 

'  The  property  does  not  pass  through  that  undefined  state  of 
Delonging  to  no  one.     It  is  a  violent  change  of  possessors. 


140  I'ROnuiTY    AND    LABOUR. 

contrary  lo  tlic  law  of  nature  to  maintain, 
as  has  been  done  of  late,  that  government 
has  a  natural  and  enduring  right  to  abolish 
individual  inheritance  or  individual  property 
inland.  If  a  man  pays  full  value  for  land, 
it  becomes,  according  to  the  law  of  nature, 
which  permits  and  enjoins  accumulation 
and  exchange,  verily  his  own,  because  taken 
in  exchange  for  values  which  were  his,  and 
it  is  revolution  alone  which  can  dispossess 
him  without  an  equivalent. 

These  revolutions,  as  has  been  fully  ad- 
mitted, may  become  necessary.  The  neces- 
sity, however,  consists  in  something  very  dif- 
ferent from  the  impatient  desire  of  seeing  the 
realization  of  some  fanciful  theory,  in  order 
to  remedy  some  real  or  imagined  evil.  Do- 
mestic revolutions,  which  violently  change 
the  ownership  of  property,  are  dire  events, 
not  on  account  of  the  unavoidable  blood- 
shed alone,  but  because  they  shake  the 
whole  social  system,  engender  the  worst 
and  fiercest  of  all  passions — cruelty  com- 
bined with  cupidity  ;  because  they  induce 
depravity  at  large  by  unsettling  the  stability 


PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR.        141 

of  justice,  and  reduce  the  general  standard 
of  morality,  loyalty,  confidence,  and  high- 
mindedness ;  and  because,  by  the  insecuri- 
ty which  is  necessarily  their  result,  they  for 
a  long  time  prevent  the  productive  employ- 
ment of  a  nation's  accumulated  values. 
Thus  they  spread  suffering  and  misery  far 
and  wide,  and  arrest  the  people  on  their  path 
of  civilization  for  a  long  time.' 

In  the  preceding  instances,  such  cases 
alone  as  occur  within  a  political  society 
have  been  considered.  Disimpropriation, 
in  these  cases,  has  reference  only  to  the  in- 
dividual owners,  and,  so  soon  as  it  takes 
place,  their  respective  state  or  nation  ap- 
propriates forthwith  what  may  have  become 
ownerless.  It  is  a  different  question  wheth- 
er, according  to  the  strict  law  of  nature, 
property  may  become  alienated  from  a  state 
without  the  positive  action  of  its  govern- 

'  It  belongs  to  the  more  particularly  speculative  part  of  nat- 
oral  law  to  show  how  relations  of  right  and  lawful  property 
may  develop  themselves  out  of  original  violence,  or  other 
disturbances  of  right  and  justice.  The  subject  has  been  dwel. 
upon  in  the  fust  volume  of  the  Political  Ethics. 


142  PROiM-.llTY    AND    LATJOUR. 

ment,  and,  consequently,  may  be  appropri- 
ated anew  by  him  who  chances  and  chooses 
to  be  the  first  to  occupy  it.  This  question 
is  of  practical  importance  to  America,  as  the 
case  of  Texas  proves.  Here  is  the  vast 
American  Continent,  with  rich,  extensive 
territories  appropriated  or  declared  to  be 
appropriated  by  certain  governments,  and 
by  people  who  in  many  cases  have  made 
no  use  of  the  soil  or  any  of  its  products 
on  the  one  hand,  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
an  active,  adventurous,  bold,  and  industri- 
ous population,  spreading  in  all  directions. 
These  two  portions  of  mankind,  in  a  soil  so 
peculiarly  circumstanced,  live  at  a  period 
when  men  are  far  less  disposed  to  cut 
short  any  international  difficulty  by  the 
sword,  or  to  realize  any  desire  to  possess 
land  with  the  cannon,  than  in  former  ages. 
The  question  of  appropriation  or  conquest, 
therefore,  appears  really  to  present  itself  in 
an  entirely  new  aspect,  and  requires  dispas- 
sionate investigation. 

To    decide   the   question,  we   must  first 
again   distinctly   present   to    ourselves   the 


PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR.        143 

characteristic  principle  of  appropriation.  I 
appropriate  a  thing  if  I  make  it  mine,  the 
thing  having  had  no  owner  before  ;  and  a 
thing  becomes  in  fairness  mine  if  I  am  the 
first  to  make  it  subservient  to  my  individual 
use  ;  if  I  assimilate  my  labour  with  it  for 
direct  use  ;  or  if  I  leave  it,  in  general,  in  the 
state  m  which  I  found  it,  and  only  effect 
that  change  which  brings  it  under  my  power 
of  protection,  for  future  use  or  enjoyment. 

It  is  often  said  that  no  man  can  object  to 
another's  occupying  as  much  land  as  he  can 
make  use  of ;  but  this  term  Use  is  left  unex- 
plained. It  certainly  cannot  be  restricted 
to  actual  cultivation.  Suppose  a  man  sees 
his  family  rapidly  increasing,  or  sees  that 
his  timber  is  fast  failing,  but  that,  on  another 
spot,  timber  such  as  he  wants  is  growing, 
and  will  be  fit  for  use  by  the  time  his  present 
timber  will  be  consumed  ;  it  cannot  be  de- 
nied that  the  spot  on  which  the  timber  grows 
falls  within  the  term  of  usefulness  to  the  ap- 
propriator.  But,  to  make  that  hitherto  im- 
appropriated  thing  my  own,  which  is  of 
prospective  advantage  to  me,  a  mere  decla- 


144       PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR. 

ration  to  that  effecl  will  not  suffice.  No 
matter  how  fully  my  intention  may  have 
been  expressed,  this  single  expression  does 
not  make  the  thing  mine,  nor  does  it  in  any 
way  stamp  it  with  the  character  of  property. 
To  give  to  it  this  character,  it  is  necessary 
that  the  claimant  be  in  some  direct  connex- 
ion with  the  thing  claimed,  and  can  mark  it 
as  his  individually.  This  may  be  done  by 
assimilating  his  individuality  Avith  it,  either 
by  changing  its  character  in  connecting  it 
with  his  labour,  or  by  the  exercise  of  imme- 
diate authority  or  control  over  it.  If  he  does 
not  stamp  it  as  his,  or,  rather,  does  not  pro- 
duce by  his  labour,  in  conjunction  with  the 
natural  agents,  a  new  thing  (such  as  con- 
verting waste  land  into  arable),  nor  main- 
tain his  appropriation  for  future  enjoyment 
by  protectiug  the  thing  appropriated,  he 
cannot  claim  it  as  his,  because  he  has  no 
disposing  power — no  mastership  over  it.' 

1  It  has  been  maintained  by  several  former  writers  that 
marking  an  unowned  thing  suffices  for  occupancy,  out  of 
which  appropriation  arises.  But  this  will  not  be  urged  at 
jiresent  without  much  limitation  ;  it  establishes  of  itself  nt 


PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR.        145 

The    right  of  appropriation   lies,  as   we 
have  seen,  in  the  fact  that  the  thing  has  not 

connexion  between  the  thing  and  he  who  marks  it,  and,  more- 
over, might  be  extended,  especially  with  reference  to  land,  to 
a  most  unreasonable  extent.  If,  however,  the  marking  itself 
proves  great  previous  labour,  or  the  slaying  of  an  animal, 
and  shows  an  immediate  desire  to  use  it,  especially  if  it  is 
clear  that  he  who  marked  is  prevented  from  using  the 
thing  by  circumstances,  the  case  seems  difTerent.  As  an 
illustration,  I  will  quote  a  usage  which  has  grown  out  of  the 
common  feeling  of  our  whalers  when  many  thousands  of  miles 
from  their  home  and  their  political  society.  Mr.  G.  T.  Cur- 
tis, in  his  Rights  and  Duties  of  Merchant  Seamen,  Boston, 
1841,  gives,  in  note  4  on  whale-fishery,  page  ^94,  the  fol- 
lowing remark,  as  communicated  by  a  professional  gentleman 
of  New-Bedford,  Mass.  : 

"  The  rule  with  regard  to  the  occupancy  of  these  animals 
(the  whales),  •  fera;  naturae,'  is  believed  to  be  somewhat  dif- 
ferent from  the  rule  of  the  common  law  in  regard  to  land  ani- 
mals. The  whaling-craft  of  every  vessel  is  marked,  harpoons, 
lances,  dec.  When  a  whale  has  been  actually  killed,  and  other 
game  is  in  sight,  or  it  is  inconvenient,  for  any  other  reason, 
to  take  him  on  board,  it  is  usual  for  the  captors  to  fasten  a 
'  waif  (marked  iron)  into  the  body  and  leave  it.  Many  days 
may  elapse  before  the  animal  is  recovered  ;  and  if,  in  the 
mean  time,  another  ship  should  fall  in  with  it,  and  the  waif  is 
still  adhering  to  the  body,  the  right  of  property  is  considered 
as  remaining  in  the  original  captors,  and  is  strictly  respected. 
If  it  were  violated  trover  would  undoubtedly  lie.  When  a 
number  of  vessels  are  engaged  in  pursuit  of  the  same  whale, 
and  a  boat's  crew  succeeds  in  making  fast  to  it,  no  new  crew 
M 


146       PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR. 

yet  been  appropriated  ;  the  object,  in  use- 
fulness; the  means  with  which  we  effect  it, 
in  use  and  power  (for  prospective  use).  If 
these  are  lost,  property  is  lapsed.  In  a  na- 
tion in  a  state  of  peace,  a  total  lapse  of 
property  is  never  allowed  actually  to  take 
place;,  and  laws  declare  that,  so  soon  as  a 
thing  becomes  ownerless,  the  state  at  large 
becomes  the  owner,  and  shall  dispose  of  it 
according  to  the  best  advantage  of  society, 
because  any  other  arrangement  would  natu- 
rally lead  to  a  great  disturbance  of  peace. 
But  if  a  whole  district  of  land  is  not  used 
by  a  nation  directly  or  indirectly,  and  if  the 
nation  has  not  been  able  to  protect  it  as  its 
own  for  a  long  time,  it  seems  that  the 
essential  characteristics  of  property  are  re- 
ally lost,  and  disimpropriation  has  taken 
place.  The  earth  was  given  to  mankind 
for  use  ;  and  if  it  be  left  wholly  unused,  it 
fails  to  obtain  its  object.     The  power  of  do- 

from  any  other  vessel  have  any  right  to  attack  the  whale.  But 
should  the  harpoons  of  the  first  draw  and  the  boat  beconne 
detached,  they  have  then  a  right  to  renew  the  chase  equally 
with  the  others. ' 


PROF Ear Y    AND    LABOUR.  147 

minion  in  a  government  corresponds  to  the 
power  of  control  or  influence  in  the  indi- 
vidual. 

It  is  readily  acknowledged  that  such 
words  as  Use,  or  Direct  and  Indirect  Use, 
are  terms,  the  correct  meaning  of  which 
must  depend  upon  our  fairness,  and,  of 
course,  may  be  very  easily  misconstrued 
by  reckless  cupidity.  This  fact,  however, 
does  not  invalidate  the  truth  of  our  position., 
that  nonuscr,  fairly  to  be  considered  as  such 
(which  ought  to  include,  in  the  law  of  na- 
tions, absence  of  all  productive  use,  of  util- 
ity to  the  safety  of  the  whole,  and  powe*  to 
claim  or  protect  it),  works  between  nations 
a  lapse  or  "  waiver."  But  since  it  is,  in  the 
nature  of  things,  difficult  to  decide  when 
this  international  waiver  or  forfeiture  has 
taken  place,  and  since  our  judgment  is  so 
easily  influenced  by  arguments  originally 
suggested  by  cupidity,  perhaps  unconscious- 
ly to  ourselves,  we  ought  to  be  exceedingly 
cautious  in  making  use  of  a  right  thus  de- 
volved, and  especially  not  to  abandon  a  coun- 
try abounding  in  uncultivated  land  ard  thin- 


148       PROPERTY  AND  LABOUK. 

ly  peopled,  from  sheer  rceklessncss,  for  a 
soil  to  whieh  v/c  can  lay  claim  only  accord- 
ing to  principles  superseding  established 
and  Avritten  laws  or  ti'eaties. 

The  question  respecting  Texas  must  be, 
perhaps,  decided  upon  this  ground :  Was  or 
Avas  not  the  District  of  Coahuila  and  Texas 
unused  and  unappropriated  for  a  long  scries 
of  years  by  the  government  which  claimed 
it  by  declaration  ?  This  seems  to  have 
been  the  question  ;'  we  will  not  attempt  to 
solve  it  here  ;  but,  to  give  an  illustration  of 
the  remarks  just  made,  Upper  California 
may  be  instanced. 

In  reading  Mr.  Forbes's  History  of  Up- 
per and  Lower  California,^  the  author  can- 

'  If,  indeed,  the  other  view  be  not  taken,  according  to  which 
Texas  vvas  for  a  long  time  claimed  by  the  United  States,  in 
their  diplomatic  transactions,  as  justly  belonging  to  Louisiana. 
The  Texans  accordingly  otfercd  themselves  as  a  state  to  the 
Union,  and,  when  the  United  States  declined  receiving  them, 
they  established  their  own  separate  government.  The  reader 
may  find  a  sketch  of  the  diplomatic  transactions  respectmg 
the  claim  of  dominion  over  Texas  insisted  upon  by  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  United  States,  in  a  Letter  of  N.  Biddle,  ap- 
pended to  a  work  entitled  Texas  and  the  Texans,  by  H.  S. 
Footc,  Philad.,  1841. 

'  A  History  Df  Upper  and  Lower  California,  from  their  first 


PROPKRTY    A.VD    LABC  UR.  149 

didly  acknowledges,  that  he  could  not  pre- 
vent his  mind  from  yielding  to  the  convic- 
tion that  here  a  case  of  actual  international 
disimpropriation  has  taken  place,  if,  as  no 
doubt  can  be  entertained,  the  account  be 
correct.  One  of  the  fairest  portions  of  the 
globe ;  rich  in  every  kindly  gift  of  nature  ;  a 
fertile,  and,  in  parts,  luxuriant  soil,  well  tim- 
bered ;  navigable  streams  abounding  in  fish ; 
a  healthy,  invigorating  climate ;  an  exten- 
sive country  with  a  long  seacoast,  with 
harbours  to  aid  effectively  in  a  commerce 
across  the  Pacific,  and  thus  uniting  more  ef- 
ficiently Europe,  America,  and  Asia  in  that 
first  of  all  requisites  of  advancing  mankind 
— in  the  exchange  of  their  products — this 
vast  territory,  which  might  substantially  con- 
Discovery  to  the  Present  Time,  comprising  an  Account  of 
Climate,  &c.,  with  a  fall  View  of  the  Missionary  Establish- 
ments and  Condition  of  the  free  and  domesticated  Indians, 
with  an  Appendix  relating  to  the  Steam  Navigation  in  the 
Pacific,  &c.,  by  Alexander  Forbes,  London,  1839.  To  pre- 
vent any  misunderstanding,  it  ought  perhaps  to  be  mentioned, 
that  Mr.  Forbes  does  not  once  indicate,  directly  or  indirectly, 
any  opinion  whatever  approaching  to  the  one  above.  It  is  the 
author's  own,  and,  whatever  censure  may  be  bestowed  upon  it, 
he  must  take  it  solely  upon  himself. 


150       PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR. 

tribute  to  the  great  mart  of  nations,  where 
the  production  of  every  new  commodity 
forms  a  demand  for  the  production  of  equiv- 
alents, and  might  offer  to  millions  upon  mill- 
ions happy  and  prosperous  homes,  is,  while 
other  territories  are  crowded  and  many 
overpeopled,  nevertheless  inhabited  by  a 
very  few  of  the  poorest  and  lowest  Indians, 
and  wholly  unprotected  by  the  Mexican 
government,  Avhich  cannot  possibly  extend 
its  power  to  this  region.  It  seems  that  no 
mere  declaration,  "  This  belongs  to  us,"  can 
become  a  bar  against  the  very  destiny  of  so 
genial  a  soil.' 

*  The  ground  upon  which  the  title  arising  out  of  occupan- 
cy alone  is  conceded  to  our  Indians,  but  not  the  actual  own- 
ership of  the  land,  is  this,  that  they  do  not  use  the  land  as  it 
was  destined  to  be  used,  for  the  support  of  mankind,  and  that 
but  very  few  individuals  can  be  maintained  by  the  produce  of 
the  chase.  The  same  argument,  but  in  a  higher  degree, 
would  apply  to  a  government  which  neither  uses  nor  protects 
a  tract  of  land.  The  reader  who  desires  more  accurate  in- 
formation on  the  subject  of  Indian  occupancy  and  the  owner- 
ship of  land  vested  in  the  United  States,  is  referred  to  th» 
interesting  cases  adjudged  in  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  Uni- 
ted States :  Johnson  v.  M'Intosh,  8  Whcaton,  543,  and 
Fletcher  v.  Peck,  6  Cranch,  142,  143.  The  whole  of  Lec- 
ture li.,  vol.  iii.,  of  Kent's  Commentaries,  is  of  much  inter- 
ist  on  this  subject. 


V. 

« 

On  Common  Property  in  Land. 

Private  property  in  land  is  as  natural 
and  unfailing  an  effect  of  man's  right  and 
duty  to  appropriate  and  accumulate,  as 
property  in  other  things.  It  is  true,  indeed, 
as  we  have  seen,  that  we  find  in  the  early 
history  of  many,  perhaps  of  most,  nations 
now  existing,  a  general  distribution  of  land, 
because  all  these  nations  obtained  posses- 
sion of  the  soil  which  they  now  occupy  by 
conquest,  or,  as  was  frequently  the  case  in 
America,  by  public  barter  ;  in  short,  by  a 
process  in  which  a  community  already  form- 
ed acquired,  as  such,  the  land  as  a  whole 
mass,  and,  of  course,  was  obliged  to  resort 
to  a  division,  either  at  once  and  throughout 
the  territory,  or  gradually,  according  to  pre- 
scribed rules.  Conquest,  liowever,  belongs 
to  those  many  acts  of  violence  which  may 
forcibly  change  the  owners  of  any  property. 


152        PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR. 

The  universal  tendency  is  towards  private 
property  ;  a  tendency  which  shows  itself  in- 
variably the  clearer  with  the  advance  of 
civilization  and  cultivation. 

It  remains  now  only  to  inquire  wljether  it 
is  expedient  for  a  community  either  to  re- 
tain the  common  ownership  of  land,  after  it 
has  been  obtained  by  fair  or  violent  means, 
barter  or  conquest,  or  to  return  to  it  by  a 
general  legislative  spoliation  of  the  private 
owners,  or  by  the  main  force  of  a  revolution 
— a  civil  war  and  internal  conquest,  as  it 
were. 

The  instances  which  are  at  times  addu- 
ced in  order  to  prove  the  prosperity  of  as- 
sociations holding  landed  property  in  com- 
mon, and  uniting  all  their  profits  which  may 
result  from  any  branches  of  their  industry, 
such  as  Mr.  Rapp's  community,  or  the  as- 
sociations of  the  people  generally  called 
Shaking  Quakers,  are  wholly  insufficient  to 
prove  any  principle  of  general  political  ac- 
tion. 

These  communities  are  either  very  limit, 
ed,  so  that,  indeed,  they  have,  in  many  re- 


PROPERTY  A\D  LABOUR.        153 

»  pects,  the  attributes  of  private  owners,  and 
have  existed  but  a  short  time,  or  they  are 
founded   upon   religious  views  so  peculiar, 
and  at  the  sacrifice  of  so  much  that  is  held 
vitally  important  by  all   the  rest  of  man- 
kind, that  they  prove  nothing  against  the  law 
of  mankind  exhibited  by  the  course  of  his- 
tory, that   the    more   civilized  a   tribe   be- 
comes,  the    more    distinctly    does    private 
property  in   land  develop   itself;    and  that 
the   more  this  development  is  retarded,  by 
whatever  causes,  the  less  is  land  made  ser- 
viceable for  the  great  purposes  of  mankind. 
This    truth    applies    not    only   to    whole 
states  at  large,  and  comprehensive  institu- 
tions, which  may  promote  or  retard  private 
property  in   land,    but   it   obtains    likewise 
with  reference  to  every  period  of  advancing 
civilization   and    political   progress.     With 
every  onward  step   which   culture   makes, 
some  land,  until  then  held  in  common,  as 
waste  land,  huge  forests,  or  common  pas- 
ture, is  parcelled  out  to  private  ownership, 
in  order  to  receive  the  fertilizing  culture  of 
private  industry,  and  the  exertions  of  him 


154  PROPERTY    AN'D    LABOUR. 

wb^ose  individual  success,  hope,  and  pride 
are  bound  up  in  a  specific  piece  of  land 
that  he  can  distinctly  and  exclusively  call 
his  own. 

It  has  been  proposed  to  unite  the  advan- 
tages of  private  and  common  property,  by 
parcelling  the  land  into  farms  sufficient  to 
maintain  a  family,  and  to  give  the  use  of  it 
for  life.  As  these  standard  farms  .become 
vacated  by  the  death  of  the  owner  for  life, 
the  person  highest  on  the  list  of  those  who 
have  become  of  age  is  to  enter  as  the  new 
occupier.  This  arrangement,  if  it  could 
possibly  be  carried  into  effect,'  would  go  a 
great  deal  farther  than  the  ancient  Lace- 
dsemonian  institution  of  landed  property, 
which  made  it  at  least  family  property. 
The  Lacedsemonian  institution  only  pre- 
vented too  large  an  accumulation  of  landed 
property,  and  was  meant  to  prevent  every 
citizen  from  remaining  without  land. 

'  The  question  of  the  right,  arising  out  of  the  right  and  duty 
of  accumulation,  and  the  wrong  done  to  the  possessor  who  has 
given  his  equivalents  in  accumulated  values  for  a  portion  of 
the  soil,  has  been  touched  upon  in  a  previous  passage,  and 
need  not  be  discussed  here. 


PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR.        155 

Those  who  propose  so  fanciful  a  scheme 
forget  to  tell  us  what  should  become  of 
those  who,  after  all,  do  not  receive  a  farm 
for  life ;  how  the  original  division  shall  re- 
main adequate  to  an  increasing  population, 
or  whether  new  divisions  from  time  to  time 
shall  take  place,  which  even  in  Sparta,  ac- 
customed as  the  ancients  were  to  consider 
themselves  individually  wholly  the  creatures 
of  their  state,  nevertheless  led  to  frequent 
tumults  and  disorders.' 

What  shall  become  of  the  surplus  reve- 
nue derived  by  the  temporary  possessor  of 
the  land  from  his  farm  ?  Shall  he  be  bound 
by  law  to  reinvest  it  in  the  farm  ?  How 
can  he  be  forced  to  do  so  ?  And  if  not, 
will  he  not  endeavour  by  all  means  to  in- 
vest it  in  a  manner  so  as  to  secure  it  for 
his  children  ?  What  is  to  be  done  with  his 
widow  ?  is  she  to  be  maintained  at  the  public 
expense  ?  If  we  are  answered  that  the  en- 
tailed roperty  of  the  British  peer  descends 
whole    ind  entire,  without  reference  to  his 

>  Aristotle,  Polit.,  5,  6,  2. 


156  PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR 

widow,  wc  must  remember  that  At  any  rate 
it  does  descend  in  the  family  ;  she  is  pro- 
vided for  ;  and  that  the  revenue  derived  by 
the  possessor  may  be  invested,  and,  after 
death,  disposed  of  as  tlic  owner  thinks  best. 
Let  us  ask  farther,  How  shall  the  tempo- 
rary owner  of  the  farm  for  life  be  induced 
to  improve  his  farm  to  the  utmost,  that  it 
may  keep  pace  with  advancing  culture  in 
other  countries,  and  with  increasing  popula- 
tion ?  or,  rather,  How  shall  he  be  prevented 
from  acting  as  the  former  governors  of 
Spanish  South  America  did,  sent  as  they 
were  for  a  brief  time  only,  and  generally, 
theiefore,  disposed  to  make  the  best  of  their 
allotted  time,  and  to  fill  their  coffers  as 
quickly  as  possible  ?  How  can  so  disas- 
trous a  system  be  prevented  from  spreading 
desolation  over  the  land,  and  driving  capi- 
tal into  foreign  parts,  instead  of  investing  it 
anew  in  land  or  other  branches  of  industry  ? 
Why  shall  this  arrangement  extend  to  farm- 
ing industry  only  ?  Shall  the  farmers  form  a 
caste,  as  in  the  East  ?  How  shall  the  phy- 
sician,  the    lawyer,    the    manufacturer,   or 


PROPERTY  AXD  LABOUR.        157 

merchant,  be  induced  to  invest  their  accu- 
mulations in  land  ?  Not  to  speak  here  of 
the  demoralizing  effect  which  so  incongru- 
ous a  system  would  inevitably  produce  upon 
all,  by  rendering  all  possession  unstable,  and 
by  vastly  increasing  poverty  through  uni- 
versally reduced  productiveness. 

Those  who  have  proposed  so  irrational 
and  unnatural  a  measure  seem  to  start  from 
the  idea  that  land  is  value  of  itself,  and 
yields  sustenance  like  a  wild  fruit -tree. 
They  do  not  seem  to  consider  that  we  can- 
not turn  land  to  any  account  unless  we 
have  capital  or  accumulated  values  to  be- 
gin with,  and  that  Ave  must  continue  to  save 
and  accumulate  values  lest  a  rapid  falling 
back  into  barbarity  should  take  place,  as  it 
actually  has  taken  place  at  all  times  when 
this  fearful  fact  occurred  ;  for  instance,  as 
was  mentioned  before,  in  many  parts  of 
the  Roman  empire  during  the  iirst  centuries 
of  our  era. 

The  Constitution  of  Lycurgus  provided 
for  a  primary  distribution  of  land,  which 
had  been   conquered  by  the  Dorians  from 


158        PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR. 

the  original  LacedsDmonians,  and  in  various 
ways  endeavoured  to  extinguish  the  idea  of 
individual  property  in  land.  Each  citizen 
should,  if  possible,  possess  one  share  (/cA^pof), 
and  no  more  ;  nor  should  he  sell  it  or  di- 
vide it.  The  whole  share  should  belong  to 
the  family  [olKog,  house).  One  of  the  very 
objects  of  this  institution  was,  that  the  Spar- 
tans, the  conquerors  and  rulers,  should  en- 
joy the  leisure  (apyia)  which  became  an 
acknowledged  object  of  the  state.  Agri- 
culture was  degraded,  and  considered  fit  for 
helots  and  serfs  only.  Cleomenes  the  elder 
called  Homer  a  poet  fit  for  Spartans,  and 
Hesiod  for  helots,  because  the  latter  had 
made  agriculture  the  burden  of  his  song. 

The  natural  consequence  was,  that  Lace- 
daemon  became  one  of  the  least  productive 
countries  of  Greece,  and  the  Spartans  were 
continually  and  necessarily  engaged  in  con- 
quests, while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  Consti- 
tution of  Lycurgus  seems  never  to  have 
been  fully  exacted.  Soon  it  was  altogeth- 
er abandoned,  with  its  idle  dreams  of  iron 
money.     If  the  Spartans  degenerated,  it  is 


PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR.        159 

equally  clear  that,  had  they  really  adhered 
to  all  the  regulations  of  Lycurgus,  they 
could  not  have  made  wars  and  conquering 
excursions  upon  others,  and  must  have  sunk 
into  a  state  of  barbarous  inanity.  Whence 
should  the  means  of  conquest  have  been  de- 
rived ?  I  believe  it  cannot  be  denied  that, 
while  the  Constitution  of  Lycurgus  banish- 
ed luxury  and  trade,  in  order  to  make  the 
Spartan  state  an  essentially  military  one,  to 
which  every  other  consideration  seems  to 
have  been  sacrificed,  it  was  the  military  ex- 
peditions themselves  which  obliged  the  Spar- 
tans to  disregard  the  Lycurgan  law  against 
treasures  by  accumulating  them,  in  order  to 
be  able  to  defray  the  heavy  expenses  of 
their  wars. 

An  instance  of  community  of  landed 
property,  somewhat  more  similar  to  that 
which  has  been  proposed,  may  be  taken 
from  the  picture'  which  Tacitus  gives  of  the 
Germans.  The  passage  itself,  to  which  I 
have  previously  alluded,  will  sufficiently 
show  that  it  simply  arose  out  of  the  low 
state    of  agriculture.      People    valued    the 


160        PROPKRTV  AND  LABOUR. 

land  but  for  a  short  season.  "  The  fields, " 
says  Tacitus,  "  are  occupied  alternately 
by  entire  communities,  in  proportion  to 
the  iiumber  of  the  cultivators,  and  imme- 
diately they  are  divided  among  themselves 
according  to  rank.  The  business  of  divis- 
ion is  facilitated  by  the  wide  space  of  the 
fields.  The  seed-fields  are  changed  an- 
nually, and  they  have  land  for  this  purpose 
in  abundance.  For,  these  people  do  not  vie 
by  exertion  with  the  fertility  and  extent  of 
soil,  for  instance,  by  planting  orchards,  lay- 
ing out  meadows,  irrigating  gardens ;  no- 
thing but  the  seed  is  intrusted  to  the  earth. 
Hence  they  even  divide  the  year  less  mi- 
nutely ;  of  winter,  spring,  and  summer  they 
have  ideas,  and  name  them  ;  a  name  for  au- 
tumn is  as  unknown  to  them  as  the  gifts  of 
this  season.'" 

A  modern  instance  of  a  continued  com- 
munity of  land  and  temporary  division 
among  families,  and  periodical  exchange 
of  good  and  bad  land,  connected  as  a  mat- 
ter of  course  with  all  the  dangers  of  tumult 
'  Germania,  26. 


PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR.        161 

and  bloodshed,  we  find  in  a  large  part  of 
the  Afghaun  tribes,  a  people  in  Central 
A.sia.  The  custom  of  submitting,  every  ten 
years,  or  at  periods  of  less  duration,  the 
tenure  of  the  land  to  the  lot,  is  called  by 
them  Waish,  and  described  by  Mr.  Elphin- 
stone  in  his  Account  of  the  Kingdom  of 
Caubul.'  The  author  mentions  in  a  note 
appended  to  his  description  of  the  Waish, 
that  Mr.  Volney  describes  this  custom  as 
being  in  practice  in  Corsica.  Neither  the 
one  nor  the  other  will  be  found  alluring 
examples,  either  on  account  of  the  advanced 
state  of  the  people  or  the  condition  of  the 
soil,  for  the  active,  industrious,  and  inde- 
pendent people  of  northern  Europe  and 
their  descendants. 

'  Hon.  Mountstuart  Elphinstone's  Account  of  the  King- 
dom of  Caubul,  &c.,  comprehending  a  View  of  the  Afghaun 
Nation,  2d  ed.,  London,  1839,  vol.  ii.,  p.  16  and  seq.  This 
work,  of  much  interest  on  many  accounts,  contains  the  de- 
scription of  a  systematized  patriarchal  system,  which,  in  the- 
ory at  least,  is  carried  out  by  division  and  subdivision,  from 
the  king  through  a  varielv  of  larger  and  lesser  divisions,  tribes 
and  clans,  to  the  last  head  of  a  single  family,  such  as  proba- 
bly exists  nowhere  else. 

N 


162       PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR. 

Among  the  great  and  elennentary  changes 
within  the  last  half  century,  Avhich  have 
been  made  in  the  internal  administration 
of  the  most  civilized  nations,  the  conversion 
of  common  property  into  private  must  be 
considered  as  the  most  prominent.'  It  was 
found  that  in  all  cases  in  which  the  value 
of  the  property  is  not  positively  injured  by 
division — for  instance,  a  pasture-ground  so 
poor  that  it  hardly  affords  scanty  food,  from 
time  to  time,  to  a  few  cattle  in  common — a 
far  greater  value  is  developed  by  private 
industry.  This  process  had  been  going  on, 
indeed,  more  or  less  ever  since  the  end  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  but  it  may  be  said  to  have 
become  one  of  the  distinguishing  features 

•  In  Prussia  a  law  was  passed,  September  14,  1811,  wliich 
enabled  every  land-owner  to  absolve  his  feudal  services,  by 
obliging  him  to  whom  they  were  due  to  lake  an  equivalent  for 
them,  and  which  divided  all  lands  held  by  communities  for 
constant  or  alternate  common  use,  and  which  were,  accord- 
ing to  their  quality,  divisible  into  private  property.  We  do 
not  speak  here,  of  course,  of  property  held  by  communities  or 
corporations,  so  that  the  profits  accrue  to  them  collectively, 
but  only  of  common  lands,  made  use  of  by  the  members  of  ihfi 
community  individually. 


PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR.        163 

of  the  age  during  the  last  century,  and  is 
closely  connected  with  what  may  be  fairly 
called  the  main  problem  of  \he  last  period 
of  history,  the  Commons'  Liberty — individ- 
ual independence  brought  down  to  the 
great  mass  of  citizens,  and  not  restricted 
either  to  the  nobility,  or  to  corporations  or 
chartered  bodies.' 

'  The  characteristic  difference  between  civil  liberty  in  an- 
cient limes,  the  Middle  Ages,  and  modern  times,  or  of  City 
States,  Corporation  States,  and  National  States,  forms  one  of 
the  most  interesting  and  most  instructive  subjects  for  the 
philosophical  inquirer  into  history.  I  have  endeavoured  to 
sketch  this  diflference,  as  well  as  the  occasion  permitted,  in 
the  second  volume  of  my  Political  Ethics,  where  the  peculiar 
character  of  the  Representative,  and  the  duties  arising  out  of 
it,  are  discussed.  I  am  not  aware  that  there  e.Tists  anywhere 
a  history  of  property  in  which  a  strictly  historical  sketch  of  the 
♦.itles  and  tenure  of  property  is  given.  It  would  be  one  of  the 
most  interesting  contributions  to  the  history  of  civilization. 


VI. 

On  the  Inequality  of  Individual  Property. 

The  theories  which  from  time  to  time, 
since  the  first  centuries  of  our  era,  have  been 
started  with  reference  to  a  community  of 
property,  either  on  religious,  political,  or 
strictly  social  grounds,  and  which  have  of 
late  been  renewed  in  some  countries  with 
redoubled    activity,'  are  owing    to    several 

'  Community  of  property  was  repeatedly  preached  by  reli- 
gious fanatics  in  the  Middle  Ages,  long  before  the  reforma- 
tion. Allusion  is  made  here,  not  to  the  founders  of  monastic 
orders,  who  established  a  community  of  property  within  the 
limits  of  their  orders,  but  to  those  sects  who  actually  preached 
a  general  community  of  all  property.  Of  course,  they  never 
had  a  chance  to  try  the  realization  of  what  needs  must  be  im- 
possible, although  they  created  misery  and  suffering,  vice  and 
crime,  even  in  their  attempts.  The  most  ferocious  preachers 
of  a  universal  community  of  property  (and  even  of  wives) 
among  the  protestants  were  the  anabaptists. 

It  may  be  mentioned  here  as  an  interesting,  and  no  doubt 
significant  fact,  that,  whenever  community  of  property  has 
been  held  up  by  christian  fanatics,  and,  I  believe,  also  by  Mo- 
hammedan, community  of  wives,  or  promiscuous  intercourse 
of  the  sexes,  was  coupled  wi'h  the  fanatical  doctrine.     We 


PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR.        165 

Other  reasons  than  those  misconceptions  or 
that  confusion  of  ideas  on  the  original  right 
of  private  property,  or  on  a  community  of 
property  within  limited  bounds,  of  which  we 
have  treated.  They  have  been  owing,  in 
part,  to  the  inequality  of  property. 

No  candid  man  will  deny  that  there  is,  at 
the  first  glance,  something  startling  in  the 
contemplation  of  a  large  amount  of  wealth 
accumulated  in  the  hands  of  some  individ- 
uals, while  many  others  are  known  to  live 
in  penury  or  actual  wretchedness  from  Avant. 
There  seems  at  first  really  to  be  a  crynig 
injustice  in  such  an  order  of  things. 

perceive  a  similar  phonomeiion  in  regard  to  the  modem 
socialists,  at  least  in  the  American  followers  of  the  Eng- 
lish. I  am  unable  to  say  what  the  precise  theory  on  this 
point  in  the  British  socialist  text-hooks  is.  The  French  wri- 
ters imbued  with  socialism,  for  instance  Mr.  Fourrier,  prove 
the  same. 

There  is  hardly  a  more  interesting  suhject  which  can  occu- 
py the  inquirer  into  the  organization  of  society  and  politics 
than  this  fact,  and  the  tracing  of  the  reasons  why  an  annihila- 
tion of  private  property  is  so  closely  connected  with  the  de- 
struction of  matrimony,  and  especially  of  monogamy.  An  es- 
say on  this  subject  would  have  found  a  befitting  place  in  this 
volume  according  to  its  contents,  but  probably  not  with  refer- 
ence to  its  immediate  destination. 


166       PROPERTV  AND  LABOUR. 

This  inequality  of  fortunes  was  greater, 
probably,  than  at  any  other  period,  during 
the  imperial  epoch  of  Rome,  the  time  when 
the  first  christian  philosophers — the  fathers 
of  the  church  —  expressed  their  ideas  on 
private  property  and  the  division  of  goods, 
which  was  caused,  as  they  maintained,  by 
the  wicked,  and  the  community  of  goods 
which  ought  to  exist,  or  might  exist,  among 
the  faithful,  in  which  opinion  they  were 
strengthened  by  the  views  of  the  ancient 
poets.  To  both,  allusion  has  already  been 
made. 

The  question  which  can  occupy  us  in 
these  essays  is  not  whether  fortunes  have 
not  at  times  become  alarmingly  large,  or 
whether,  during  some  periods,  wars  have  not 
concentrated  immense  riches  in  the  hands 
of  a  few,  and  impoverished  all  the  rest,  as 
was  the  case  at  the  cited  period  of  Rome, 
when,  besides  the  princely  fortunes  of  the 
senators  and  favourites,  all  else  in  Italy  was 
poverty  and  squalid  slavery. 

The  question  for  us  is,  Is  inequality  of 
fortune  the  effect  of  original  injustice,  or 


PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR.        167 

must  it  always  be  the  natural  effect  of  the 
course  of  things  ?  Can  it  be  wholly  avoid- 
ed, or  will  the  end  of  civilization  be  a  total 
equality  of  fortunes,  as  there  seems  to  be 
no  doubt  that  modern  civilization  has  effect- 
ed a  greater  general  equality  than  ever  ex- 
isted before,  where  accumulation  of  property 
existed  at  all  ?  Would  an  avoidance  of  in- 
equality of  property,  if  possible,  be  benefi- 
cial ?  Is  there  not  equal  inequality  in  all 
other  spheres  of  human  life  and  action  ? 
And,  finally,  would  not  those  remedies, 
which  have  been  proposed  with  a  view  of 
extinguishing  inequality  of  property,  and 
with  it  inequality  of  condition,  entail  infi- 
nitely greater  misery  ? 

Is  the  inequality  of  property  the  effect  of 
injustice,  or  is  it  natural,  consonant  with  our 
organization,  agreeable  to  our  destiny  ? 

We  have  seen  that  the  acquisition  of 
property  by  appropriation  and  production  is 
one  of  the  essential  attributes  of  man,  is  ne- 
cessary for  the  advancement  of  mankind, 
and  cannot  be  eradicated  from  our  nature. 
Property  is  a  primitive,  direct,  and  absolute 


168        PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR. 

manifcslnlion  of  it,  as  much  as  language  or 
the  political  existence  of  man.  Individuals 
may  rise  from  time  to  time,  and  question 
the  justice  of  private  property,  as  there  have 
been,  and  still  are,  fanatics  who  question 
all  authority  whatever  except  the  light  with- 
in each  person,  and  wholly  deny  the  justice 
of  compulsory  measures ;  but  neither  the 
one  nor  the  other  can  repress  the  nature  of 
man,  who  will  go  on,  and  who  cannot  help 
going  on,  appropriating  and  producing,  and, 
consequently,  making  property ;  and  who 
will  continue  to  consider  it  not  only  a  duty, 
but  a  privilege,  which  distinguishes  him  from 
the  brute,  that  he  can  acknowledge  authority 
and  obey  laws.' 

Fortune,  if  we  mean  by  this  term  a  fa- 
vourable or  unfavourable  efl'ect  of  things, 
wholly  uncontrollable  by  the  individual  af- 
fected, has,  as  every  one  willingly  acknowl- 
edges, as  great  a  share  in  the  enjoyment  of 
property  as  it  has  in  all  other  human  affairs. 
To  be  born  the  son  of  an  industrious  and 

'  See  Political  Ethics,  on  Obedience  to  the  Laws. 


PROPERTY  A\D  LABOUR.        169 

skilful  man,  Avho  contrived  to  save  every 
year  some  values  over  and  above  his  ex- 
penses, and  to  accumulate  them,  so  that  the 
son  has  a  capital  to  begin  with  when  he,  in 
turn,  sei'is  out  for  himself  in  practical  and 
productive  life,  is  to  be  fortunate.  It  is  a 
species  of  good  luck  which  may  fall  to  the  lot 
of  one  not  half  so  deserving  as  a  son  of  an 
improvident  father  who  does  not  accumu- 
late, or  one  Avho,  himself  oppressed  with 
poverty,  has  never  enjoyed  a  chance  to  ac- 
cumulate any  vahies. 

But  can  we  eradicate  the  influence  which 
birth  necessarily  has  upon  every  individual  ? 
The  inequality  of  property,  indeed,  is  but 
a  minimum  of  the  universal  inequality  of  all 
things,  and  existing  in  all  spheres  of  action. 
Every  individual  is  strongly  influenced, 
both  physically  and  morally,  by  the  place 
where,  the  period,  the  political  system,  and 
religion  in  which,  and  the  parents  of  whom, 
he  is  born.  The  general  state  of  health  of 
the  parents  greatly  aff'ects  that  of  their  is- 
sue ;  the  virtue  or  vice  of  the  parents  influ- 
ences the  education  of  their  children .  Chan- 
O 


170       PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR. 

ces,  or  uncontrollable,  yet  influencing  occur- 
rences affect  us  at  every  moment  of  our  life. 

Men  have  ever  perceived  this  truth,  and  all 
ages,  therefore,  have  felt  their  dependancc, 
and  been  led  to  a  belief  in  an  overruling 
power.  When  the  ancient  fervently  prayed 
to  the  goddess  of  Fortune  for  his  newborn 
child,  he  was  right  in  his  consciousness  of  the 
utter  insufficiency  of  human  power,  although 
his  arms,  stretched  out  in  prayer,  groped 
in  the  dark,  and  were  directed  towards  a 
phantom.  Bitterly  as  many  of  us  do  feel 
the  inequality  of  condition,  still  man  is  not, 
what  the  Titan  strove  to  be,  his  own  god. 

We  cannot  possibly  eradicate  the  thou* 
sand  effects  of  the  chances  of  birth  within  the 
limits  of  a  certain  country,  any  more  than  the 
immense  difference  which  there  is  between 
the  fact  of  being  born  of  Esquimaux  parents 
near  the  icy  pole,  or  of  a  contented  farmer 
on  the  Ohio,  or  of  an  Athenian  father  at  the 
times  of  Pericles. 

Equality  of  property  is  desired  in  order  to 
produce  equality  of  condition,  but  does  con- 
dition depend  upon  property  alone  or  chief- 
ly ?      How    can    an    erinalitv  of   condition 


PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR.        171 

among  civilized  men  be  imagined,  when  the 
whole  scale  of  the  brute  creation  hardly 
shows  so  great  a  difference  between  the 
highest  and  the  loAvest  animal  as  that  be- 
tween the  most  gifted  aiid  the  lowest  man  ? 
An  infinite  diversity  in  the  physical  as  Avell 
as  intellectual  and  moral  world  is  the  great 
pervading  law  of  the  universe.  We  cannot 
change  the  different  degrees  of  fertility  of 
soil  in  the  various  countries,  although  it 
may  at  first  appear  to  us  startling  that  some 
parts  of  the  globe  should  be  so  genial,  and 
abounding  in  wealth  almost  at  the  mere 
touch  of  the  human  hand,  while  other  soils 
grant  but  grudgingly  the  barest  subsistence 
upon  mean  food  to  the  hardest  toil  and  jHod- 
ding  perseverance.  Yet  we  shall  find  that 
it  is  owing,  before  all  otlier  things,  to  this 
very  variety  of  soil,  and  the  different  angle 
in  which  it  receives  the  rays  of  the  sun,  that 
men  exchange,  have  commerce  and  indus- 
try, are  enabled  to  people  the  world  in  great 
numbers,  are  obliged  to  have  intercourse 
with  one  another,  and  to  become  civilized. 
Perfect    equality  of  soil    and    clime,  even 


172        PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR. 

though  of  the  most  fruitful  kind,  would 
have  rendered  possible  a  very  sparse  popu- 
lation only,  and  this  would  have  remained  in 
a  Stat?  of  continued  stagnation,  simply  be- 
cause there  would  have  been  no  exchange. 
If  the  levelling  principle  be  adopted,  upon 
which  inequality  of  fortune  is  considered  an 
injustice,  it  seems  that  the  poor  Norwegian 
peasant,  feeding  upon  his  compound  bread 
of  oatmeal  and  bark,  would  have  the  fairest 
possible  claim  to  share  in  the  values  which 
his  far  more  fortunate  fellow  -  farmer  in 
the  Genesee  Valley,  that  happy  land  of 
the  cultivator,  is  enabled  to  accumulate — I 
mean,  to  share  in  them  in  a  direct  way,  and 
not,  as  he  now  actually  possesses  a  right  of 
doing,  in  offering  values  which  he  may  have 
accumulated  for  land  which  may  be  offered 
here  for  sale.  Has  the  Genesee  farmer 
made  his  oAvn  lot  and  destiny  ?  If  it  be 
unjust  that  there  are  men  within  the  country 
richer  than  himself,  it  is  equally  unjust  that 
he  is  richer  than  others  either  in  his  country 
or  abroad ;  and — which  is  always  left  out  of 
consideration  by  the  declaimers  against  the 


PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR.        173 

inequality  of  condition  among  men — if  ine- 
quality of  condition  is  the  great  source  of 
crime  and  vice  Avithin  a  countryj  it  will  ne- 
cessarily still  continue  to  be  the  same,  even 
if  their  visionary  schemes  could  be  exe- 
cuted, but  an  equality  of  fortune  and  condi- 
tion among  the  various  states,  tribes,  and 
nations  should  continue. 

Equality  is  found  nowhere.  As  it  would 
produce  stagnation  in  the  physical,  so  it 
would  effect  inanity  in  the  moral  and  social 
world.  If  all  bodies  were  equally  bulky, 
at  equal  distance  and  of  equal  attraction, 
there  would  be  no  motion  of  the  heavenly 
bodies,  no  seasons,  no  vegetation.  Diver- 
sity is  the  indispensable  law  of  life.  If  the 
dispositions,  constitutions,  and  characters  of 
all  men  were  equal,  a  state  of  inane  no- 
thingness, "  in  which  all  opposites  have 
ceased,"  such  as  the  contemplative  Hindoo 
considers  perfection,  must  ensue.  Inequal- 
ity of  property  is  the  will  of  the  Creator ; 
for  individual  property  cannot  exist  without 
it,  and  individual  property  lies  at  the  bot- 
tom of  human  advancement  and  civilization. 


174        PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR. 

The  argument,  sometimes  used  against 
riches,  that  it  is  wrong  that  some  sliould  be 
rich  so  k  ng  as  others  are  poor,  is  insuffi- 
cient. If  it  were  correct  it  would  hold 
against  all  inequality  of  property  ;  and  if 
we  abolish  inequality  of  property,  we  must 
sink  into  unproductive  barbarity,  where  all 
are  poor.  So  natural  and  necessary  is  in- 
dividual property  to  man,  that  there  is  no 
fear  that  it  can  ever  be  eradicated ;  but 
men  may  arrive  at  this  ultimate  conclusion 
only  after  fearful  and  sanguinary  attempts 
at  its  extinction.  Every  attempt  at  what  is 
unnatural  rr.ust  prove  unsuccessful  in  the 
end,  but  the  attempts  themselves  produce 
suffering  and  misery,  or,  if  only  wished  for, 
discontent  and  unfitness  for  an  active  and 
useful  life. 

From  what  has  been  stated  before,  it 
must  have  appeared  that  the  view  of  the  in- 
justice of  diverse  fortunes  is  founded  upon 
another  serious  error.  It  was  remarked 
that  it  is  not  long  since  the  science  of  polit- 
ical economy  has  clearly  proved  that  wealth 
does  not  consist  in  so  much  coin  or  specie, 


PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR.       175 

but  in  values  ;  and  that,  to  repeat  previous 
remarks,  values  are  produced  by  conferring 
utility  or  desirableness  upon  things,  so  that 
they  may  be  exchanged  one  for  the  other 
to  the  benefit  and  the  increased  possession 
of  values  or  wealth  of  both  the  exchangers. 
When  money  alone  was  considered  to 
constitute  wealth,  and  when,  again,  nearly 
all  men  harboured  the  distinct  or  dim  idea 
that  money  and  specie  were  the  same,  it 
was  likewise  believed,  and  openly  stated, 
that  what  makes  one  man  the  richer  must 
make  another  poorer  ;  that  if  one  nation 
prospers,  others  must  needs  proportionately 
suffer ;  for  there  is  but  a  certain  amount  of 
specie,  and  if  wealth  consists  in  specie,  it  is 
clear  that,  if  it  accumulates  in  one  place, 
it  must  lessen  in  another.'  Accumulated 
wealth  in  private  individuals  appeared  like- 
wise as  so  much  wealth  taken  from  others, 
and  withheld  from  those  who  do  not  pos- 
sess it. 

'  The  author  is  aware  that  he  has  staled  this  before,  but  he 
cannot  avoid  exhibiting  again  so  deep-rooted  and  yet  so  fatal 
an  error. 


176        PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR. 

Since  wc  know,  liowevcr,  that  wealth  con- 
sists in  values ;  that  values  must  be  accumu- 
lated in  order  to  furnish  capital  to  begin 
the  production  of  new  and  farther  values; 
and  that  exchange  of  values  is  in  all  judi- 
cious cases  for  the  benefit  of  both  exchan- 
gers, we  know,  too,  that  accumulated  cap- 
itals are  not  spoliations  of  others,  and,  if 
honestly  acquired,  hoAvever  great,  imply  no 
injustice  whatever ;  but,  on  the  contrary, 
that,  as  Adam  Smith  expresses  it,  every  sa- 
ving and  accumulating  man  is  like  the 
founder  of  an  almshouse  for  all  future  gen- 
erations. He  is  indeed  more  ;  for  he  lays 
the  foundation  for  the  support  of  labour  for 
all  generations  to  come,  indeed  forever,  un- 
less the  beneficent  efTect  of  accumulation 
is  arrested  by  a  wasteful  process,  tiiat  is,  by 
some  unproductive  consumption.' 

If  a  merchant  uses  his  means  to  transport 
commodities  desired  and  valued  in  America 
from  a  place  Avhere  they  are  abundant  and 

'  Every  sound  work  on  Political  Economy  shows  this  fact 
conclusively.  There  is  perhaps  none  which  does  so  mor* 
plainly  and  cogently  than  Mr.  Say's  Political  Economy. 


PROPERTY    ANT)    LABOUR.  177 

cheap,  and  offers  in  exchange,  to  the  produ- 
cer of  the  connnodities  a  higher  vahie  than 
the  latter  could  obtain  where  they  are  not 
desired,  as  in  Anncrica ;  and  if  the  same 
merchant  offers  these  desired  commodities, 
even  after  he  has  added  to  their  price  the 
amount  of  value  w^hich  he  means  to  make  as 
his  profit,  for  a  lower  price  to  the  American 
consumer  than  that  at  which  they  possibly 
could  have  been  obtained  without  the  mer- 
chant's assistance,  does  he  not  benefit  both 
tlie  consumer  and  producer  ?  Whom  has 
he  despoiled  ?  His  profit  is  strictly  of 
his  own  creation,  and,  while  he  benefits 
both  producer  and  consumer,  he  bestows 
the  additional  benefit  upon  his  community 
of  creating  and  accumulating  new  values, 
namely,  in  his  own  profits.  These  values 
did  not  exist  before,  and  henceforth  form 
part  of  the  national  capital  to  support  la- 
bour, to  serve  in  the  production  of  further 
new  values,  to  support  still  more  labour,  to 
feed  more  mouths,  clothe  more  bodies,  and 
warm  more  homes  ;  in  brief,  to  extend  com- 
fort and  civilization. 


178        PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR. 

Is  there  not  equal  and  still  greater  in- 
equality in  all  Dther  spheres  than  in  the  pos- 
session of  property  ?  The  inequality  of  for- 
tunes is  great  indeed;  but,  however  great,  it 
is  not  so  surprising  and  vast  as  that  which 
subsists  between  a  sage  and  a  fool  ;  a  heal- 
thy and  a  sickly  person;  a  gifted  and  a  dull 
intellect ;  a  naturally  gentle  and  harnnionious 
soul,  and  an  impetuous,  passionate  heart ;  a 
man  whose  parents  had  befriended  them- 
selves with  many  people  far  and  wide,  or 
whose  father  had  acquired  reputation  and 
distinction,  and  one  born  of  obscure  parents, 
left  at  an  early  age  as  a  friendless  orphan. 

We  all  know  that  a  natural  suavity  and 
gentleness,  accompanied  by  an  engaging 
countenance  and  pleasing  form,  frequent- 
ly become  the  key  to  unlock  the  first  gates 
of  success,  which  may  remain  closed  to  an- 
other of  equal  worth  and  talent,  but  unen- 
dowed with  these  means  of  first  introduc- 
tion ?  And  may  not  all  this  happen  with- 
out any  fault  or  injustice  being  chargeable 
to  any  one  ?  Should  we  attempt  to  level 
all  these  diversities  too  ?     Should  we  com- 


PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR.        179 

plain  of  the  injustice  which  elevates  a  Ba- 
con, a  Shakspeare,  or  a  Chatham  in  intel- 
lect, genius,  and  energy  so  high  above  un- 
counted millions  of  their  fellow-creatures, 
that  their  eminent  minds  must  have  enjoyed 
mental  activities  of  which  we,  but  poorly 
gifted,  can  have  no  conception  ?  And  is, 
indeed,  this  inequality  not  far  more  impor- 
tant and  surprising  than  that  of  property  ? 

Can  the  Inequality  of  Property  be  eradi- 
cated ? 

Is  it  in  our  power  to  remedy  the  inequal- 
ity of  property  of  which  we  have  just  spo- 
ken, if  it  were  desirable  to  do  so  ?  and  would 
not  those  remedies  which  have  been  pro- 
posed entail  still  greater  misery  ?  Many  re- 
marks in  the  course  of  the  present  inqui- 
ry have  already,  in  a  great  measure,  an- 
swered these  questions. 

One  of  the  chief  evils  complained  of  in  re- 
gard to  the  inequality  of  property  and  conse- 
quent difTerence  of  condition  among  men  is, 
I  believe,  the  unduly  small  share  which  the 
workman  has  in  the  ultimate  profits  derived 


180        PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR. 

from  the  product.  While  the  owner  of  the 
factory  makes  thousands  a  year,  the  actual 
weaver,  or  the  person  who  attends  the  spin- 
ning machines,  receives  so  small  a  share  that, 
in  some  countries,  he  can  but  barely  exist 
upon  it.  The  means  which  have  been  pro- 
posed to  remedy  this  evil  are  associations, 
in  which  the  net  profit  shall  be  equally  di- 
vided among  all  persons,  or  in  which  all 
profits  shall  be  held  as  common  property  ; 
in  short,  the  abolition  of  wages  and  the  ab- 
olition of  individual  inheritance.  Tempo- 
rary redress  has  been  sought  for  in  associa- 
tions to  enforce  higher  wages.' 

Although  certain  numbers  of  men  may 
unite  in  associations  holding  certain  kinds 
of  property  in  common,  and  throw  their 
profits  into  one  common  fund,  they  will  still 
hold  their  property,  with  reference  to  others, 
as  private  property,  and  between  these  dif- 
ferent associations  there  must  necessarily  ex- 
ist the  same  inequality  of  property  as  now 
exists    among    individuals.      Even    within 

1  These   associations  hive    been  usually  called  Trades' 
Unions. 


PROPERTY    AND    LABOUR. 


181 


themselves  the  associations  can  never  wholly 
extinguish  the  idea  of  private  property  in 
apparel  and  other  articles,  if  they  are  found- 
ed upon  those  religious  views  which  enjoin 
celibacy  upon  the  members,  and  can  only 
check  for  a  time  the  natural  desire  of 
man  to  acquire  property  of  his  own  if  they 
allow  the  existence  of  families.  Should 
they  attempt  to  extinguish  the  knowledge 
of  parentage,  as  Plato  proposes  in  his 
Republic  for  one  class  of  his  citizens, 
they  still  farther  encroach  upon  the  im- 
mutable laws  of  nature,  and  create  still 
greater  moral  and  physical  disorder.  But 
none  of  these  societies,  which  abolish  pri- 
vate property,  and  with  it  the  liberty  of  be- 
quest, can  exist  for  any  great  length  of  time 
unless  they  allow  constant  egress,  and  in  that 
case  they  might  indeed  be  imagined  to  be 
of  some  benefit  under  very  peculiar  circum- 
stances, but  only  as  exceptions,  and  for  en- 
tirely different  reasons  than  the  general  ab- 
olition of  private  property  or  of  the  ine- 
quality of  conditions. 

Man  must  ever  return  to  his  nature,  and 


182        PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR. 

he  promotes  general  progress  and  civiliza- 
tion only  in  so  far  as  he  conscientiously  de- 
velops that  nature  which  for  wise  ends  his 
Maker  has  given  him.  IVIan  is  conscious 
that  what  he  is,  he  is  individually. 

Destined  as  he  is  for  society,  he  is  still 
conscious  that  no  one  can  be  good  or  bad, 
healthy  or  sick,  happy  or  unhappy,  cold  or 
warm,  for  another.  He  naturally  flies  from 
a  state  of  things  in  which  his  individuality 
would  be  lost ;  a  situation  in  whose  forced 
or  dull  uniformity  he  would  be  only  distin- 
guished from  others,  as  the  prisoner  is  in  a 
penitentiary — by  a  number  ;  in  which  his 
own  gifts,  his  own  exertions,  in  short,  all 
that  may  be  called  his  peculiar  individual- 
ity, could  not  distinctly  imprint  itself  on  his 
actions  and  their  effects,  and  in  which  he 
should  be  deprived  of  his  natural  and  inval- 
uable right  to  call  the  product  of  his  own 
exertions,  his  own  property  ;  to  accumulate 
as  he  chooses ;  to  exchange  it  lor  what  he 
desires,  and  to  dispose  of  it  for  the  benefit 
of  his  individual  family,  which  bears  his 
name,  has  been  reared  by  himself,  and  for 


PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR.        183 

whom  he  collected  it  with  toil  and  trouble. 
Man  yearns  to  see  his  individuality  repre- 
sented and  reflected  in  the  eflects  of  his  ex- 
ertions— in  property.  It  is  as  inextinguish- 
able a  principle  as  his  own  individuality, 
and  has  that  quality  in  common  with  all 
original  laws  in  our  nature,  which  are  abso- 
lutely necessary  for  man's  physical  or  in- 
tellectual progress  or  existence,  that  it  de- 
lights man  in  being  acted  out,  and  distresses 
him  at  being  repressed.  Man  justly,  and  not 
wickedly,  rejoices  in  honestly  saving  values 
and  accumulating  property.  It  is  a  pleasure 
as  natural  and  as  pure  as  the  physical  pleas- 
ure of  drinking  when  we  are  thirsty,  of  rest- 
ing when  we  are  tired,  or  the  mental  delight 
of  exercising  our  peculiar  gifts  and  talents 
when  we  find  our  proper  sphere  of  action. 

Societies  which  strive  to  extinguish  pri- 
vate property  must  necessarily  extinguish,  in 
the  same  degree,  great  individual  exertion, 
and,  consequently,  retard  general  produc- 
tion. How  long  and  in  how  extended  a 
sphere  would  that  enthusiasm  last  Avhich 
might  prompt  a  man  for  a  time  to  labour  in- 


184       PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR. 

dustrionsly  for  the  indolent  ?  What  a  source 
of  jealousy  and  discontent  would  this  alone 
form  I  what  an  inducement  to  the  indolent 
to  relax  still  more  I  Those  who  see  great 
riches  on  the  one  hand,  but  oppressive  pover- 
ty, on  the  other,  and  propose  the  remedy  of 
an  equalization  of  property,  forget  that  the 
process  itself  would  destroy  countless  val- 
ues, and,  consequently,  the  support  of  so 
many  of  the  poor  as  were  supported  by 
them.  If,  on  the  other  iiand,  a  system  were 
devised  by  which  repeated  and  continued 
equalization  of  property  should  be  forced 
upon  men,  the  destruction  of  property  and 
prevention  of  its  accumulation  would  be 
made  permanent.  Thus  capital,  the  only 
support  of  labour,  would  be  destroyed,  and 
infinitely  more  misery  must  ensue  than  now 
exists. 

If  a  higher  moral  state  is  expected  from 
associations  acknowledging  no  private  prop- 
erty, because  it  is  supposed  that  the  main 
source  of  jealousy  is  taken  away,  we  have 
only  to  examine  the  actual  state  of  mon- 
asteries or  other  similar  societies.      Those 


PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR.        185 

little  communities  are  well  known  to  be  full 
of  petty  jealousies  and  heart-burnings.  The 
nature  of  man  does  not  improve  by  being 
cramped  and  counteracted. 

If,  however,  the  system  of  wages,  as  it 
has  been  erroneously  called — for  we  might 
as  well  speak  of  the  system  of  prices,  and 
its  abolition — if  wages  could  be  abolished 
in  any  other  way  except  by  associations 
with  common  property,'  the  immediate  ef- 
fect must  be  to  reduce  man  to  the  barbarous 
state  when  producer  and  capitalist  are  the 
same,  with  which  he  begins  the  care<;r  of 
civilization,  and  in  which  production  is  ne- 
cessarily very  dear,  because  the  cheapening 
process  of  producing  on  a  large  scale  can- 
not take  place.  Accumulation  of  capital 
would  be  much  impeded,  arid  the  support  of 
mankind  fail ;  indeed,  capital  could  not  ac- 

•  It  is  difficult,  however,  as  I  stated  before,  to  see  how  the 
many  associations  composing  a  nation  can  help  standing  in  a 
similar  relation,  in  which  now  the  individuals  stand,  exchan- 
ging labour  or  products.  Or  shall  we  imagine  a  whole  nation 
turned  into  one  society  of  this  sort  T  We  can  scarcely  depict  to 
our  mind  the  barbarity,  wretchedness,  and  dulncss  of  such  a 
nation  in  sufficiently  strong  colours. 
P 


186  rROI'KKTV    AM)    LABOUR. 

cumulate  ;  or,  if  it  should  do  so,  of  what  use 
would  it  be  ?  Ijabour  could  not  be  pro- 
cured for  it,  because  we  argue  under  the 
supposition  that  wages  are  abolished. 

Wages,  it  is  maintained,  are  too  low.  If 
by  this  assertion  it  be  meant  that  in  some 
countries  honest  exertion  is  insufficient  to 
support  a  man,  it  is  unfortunately  true  ;  and 
everything  that  a  wise  government  or  active 
charity  could  devise  to  better  such  a  state 
ought  to  be  done.  But  the  measures  which 
ought  to  be  resorted  to  are  far  different  from 
those  which  imply  a  change  of  the  nature  of 
things,  which  is,  that  in  the  great  exchange 
of  mankind,  things,  services,  labour,  capi- 
tal, talent,  skill,  learning,  utility,  or  enjoy- 
ment, obtain  the  price  which,  in  all  the  com- 
bination of  circumstances,  they  are  consider- 
ed worth ;  that  is  to  say,  people  are  willing 
to  exchange  for  them  values  of  their  own 
which  they  consider  equivalents ;  and  all 
measures  which  attempt  to  abolish  this  first 
principle,  that  the  price  is  regulated  by  the 
desirableness  of  the  thmg  offered,  in  the 
free  exchange  of  mankind,  can  only  in- 
crease the  evil  tenfold. 


PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR.        187 

Some  writers  actually  express  themselves 
as  though  mere  physical  labour'  were  the 
only  thing  that  ought  to  have  value  ;  as 
though  capital  could  be  dispensed  with  in 
production,  and,  if  not,  as  if  it  should  re- 
ceive no  share  of  the  profits.  But  what 
is  this  share  ?  That  is  wholly  regulated  by 
its  desirableness  ;  if  there  be  much  capital 
and  little  labour  in  the  market,  capital  will 
receive  a  small  share  in  the  profits  of  the 
product,  and  vice  versa ;  but  any  attempt 
to  force  up  the  value  of  the  one  and  depress 
the  other  must  create  ruin  and  mischief. 
Wages  are  no  more  an  invention  than  prop- 
erty itself.  They  are  the  natural  and  ne- 
cessary effect  of  the  state  of  things — of  the 
relation  of  man  to  the  things  around  him. 

Neither  can  any  real  and  lasting  good  be 
effected  by  associations  whose  object  is  to 
enforce,  by  combination,  wages  higher  than 
the  natural  price  of  labour,  which  is  the  effect 

'  I  do  not  pretend  to  understand  these  writers,  who  claim 
such  high  estimation  for  mere  physical  lahour.  Man's  labour 
IS  almost  always  guided  by  his  judgment ;  if  not,  we  strive 
to  substitute  animal  power  or  machmes.  If  human  labour  if 
still  continued,  it  stands  on  a  par  with  animal  power. 


188        PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR. 

of  demand  and  supply  offered  in  the  market, 
or  exchange.  If  the  members  of  a  Trades' 
Union  succeed  in  raising  wages,  the  em> 
ployer  either  continues  to  manufacture  or 
not.  If  not,  of  course  the  means  of  sup- 
port of  labour  are  destroyed  ;  if  he  does, 
without  sufficient  remuneration  for  his  capi- 
tal, he  will  soon  remove  it,  and  employ  it  in 
some  other  way.  In  this  case  the  work- 
men of  course  lose  their  support,  and  so- 
ciety at  large  loses,  because  a  loss  is  neces- 
sarily incurred  at  each  violent  change  of  in- 
vestment or  of  productive  channel.  Should 
the  employer  raise  the  price  of  the  product 
according  to  the  rise  of  wages,  others  will 
undersell  him,  if  not  in  his  OAvn  country,  cer- 
tainly in  foreign  parts.  Indeed,  strikes  of 
Trades'  Unions  are  very  apt  to  drive  whole 
branches  of  industry  into  foreign  regions, 
and  always  drive  capital,  that  is,  the  support 
of  labour,  from  the  places  where  they  hap- 
pen. 

In  the  mean  time,  the  destruction  which 
they  cause  by  the  interference  with  produc- 
tion, and  by  the  useless  consumption  of  val- 


PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR.        189 

ues  which  the  workmen  were  able  to  save 
at  previous  periods,  is  frightful.  Mr.  Du- 
pin,  a  distinguished  M-riter  who  has  been 
mentioned  before,  lately  stated  that,  during 
a  strike  of  the  Paris  workmen  in  the  au- 
tumn of  the  year  1840,  thirteen  millions  of 
francs  were  drawn  from  the  Savings'  Bank  at 
Paris.  Here  the  industrious  workmen  had 
deposited  their  saved  values  ;  they  received 
interest  for  it,  while  they  earned  additional 
values  so  long  as  they  worked.  They  stop- 
ped working,  and  Avere  obliged  to  consume 
what  they  had  saved.  Whether  they  did 
this,  or  should  have  continued  to  work,  and 
have  thrown  all  they  had  saved  into  the 
River  Seine,  amounts  precisely  to  the  same. 
They,  and,  with  them,  mankind,  are  thirteen 
millions  of  francs  less  wealthy.  This  sum 
exists  no  longer,  to  be  used  productively,  to 
support  labour,  ^ind  to  create  new  demands 
by  offering  for  exchange  the  products  which 
would  have  been  the  result  of  these  millions. 
A  calculation  was  made  at  the  time  of  the 
trial  of  the  Glasgow  cotton-spinners  in  1838, 
by  Mr.  Tait.  He  found  that  the  loss  of  the 
workmen,  exclusive  of  the  loss  by  the  em- 


190       PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR. 

ployers  of  profits,  interest  on  capital,  and 
diversion  of  trade,  v/as,  during  a  strike  of 
seventeen  weeks,  two  hundred  and  forty- 
five  thousand  dollars.' 


When  men  speak  against  private  prop- 
erty, it  is  easy  to  detect  that  many  have  in 
their  minds  some  few  princely  fortunes, 
some  ideas  of  vast  riches  ;  but  they  do  not 
remember  that  the  whole  subject  of  prop- 
erty is  of  infinitely  greater  importance  to 
the  vast  class  of  small  property  holders,  and 
the    equally    vast    one    composed   of  those 

'  Torrens,  on  Wages  and  Combination,  treats  of  the  neces- 
sary effects  of  the  latter.  The  injurious  effects  upon  morals 
by  Trades'  Unions  have  been  discussed  in  the  Political  Eth- 
ics. Only  since  the  whole  of  these  tracts  were  written  has 
their  author  become  acquainted  with  the  Political  Economy, 
its  Objects,  Uses,  and  Principles,  by  A.  Potter,  IS'ew-York, 
1840.  The  Supplementary  Chapter  of  this  work  contains  an 
essay  on  the  Condition  of  Labouring  Men  in  the  United 
States,  in  which  an  inquiry  into  the  character  and  necessary 
effects  of  Trades'  Unions  is  to  be  found,  much  the  best,  so  far 
as  my  knowledge  extends,  of  all  writings  which  treat  of  this 
subject  with  reference  to  the  United  States.  It  is  brief,  lucid, 
and  replete  with  important  facts.  Remarks  on  Unions  of 
Trades,  of  interest  with  reference  to  their  history,  may  be  found 
in  S.  Wade's  History  of  the  Middle  and  Working  Classes, 
London,  1S33>  chap,  x 


PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR.        191 

members  of  society  who  do  not  possess 
much  enduring  property,  but  acquire  and 
consume  property  daily  or  weekly.  If  we 
declare  a  community  of  property  of  what- 
ever sort,  we  must  sensibly  affect  and  let- 
ter the  previous  freedom  of  acquiring  it 
whether  this  be  done  to  save  it  or  to  con 
sume  the  whole  again  ;  in  short,  we  musi 
affect  the  invaluable  right  of  every  free  man 
to  exchange  his  labour  for  what  he  find? 
most  advisable,  and  seriously  cripple  the 
creation  of  that  which  can  be  offered  in  eX' 
change  for  human  exertion,  and  consequent- 
ly support  it. 

When  we  reflect  upon  the  fact  that  a  vast 
majority  of  all  law-cases  arise  out  of  dis- 
putes about  Mine  and  Thine,  wc  might,  if 
sufficiently  hasty,  conclude  that  an  abolition 
of  this  source  of  contest  would  be  the  great- 
est harbinger  of  peace  to  mankind.  The 
fact,  however,  would  be  far  different.  Only 
when  men  have  acquired  private  and  dis- 
tinct property  in  the  soil,  they  unite  into 
closer  and  more  peaceful  societies,  soften  in 
manners,  and  then  only  grow  up  the  more 


192 


PROPERTY    AND   LABOUR. 


distinct  governments,  which  form  one  of  the 
indispensable  means  of  civilization.  How- 
ever frequent  the  disputes  about  property 
may  be  in  populous  communities,  it  is  nev- 
ertheless the  very  lie  of  society. 

Private  property,  and  the  unshackled  right 
of  acquiring  it,  is,  all  appearances  at  a  hasty 
glance  to  the  contrary,  nevertheless  the  nour- 
isher  of  man  and  the  cement  of  society;  the 
incentive  of  individual  industry,  and  broad 
foundation  of  general  prosperity ;  it  is  the 
basis  of  social  advancement,  the  support  of 
knowledge,  and  a  mirror  in  which  man  be- 
holds his  rights  ;  it  is  the  promoter  of  manly 
consciousness  and  individual  independence, 
and  a  firm  foundation-stone  of  the  fabric  of 
national  liberty.  The  security  of  its  acqui- 
sition, and,  when  acquired,  of  its  transmis- 
sion to  other  generations  ;  the  consciousness 
of  holding  property  by  an  inherent  natural 
right,  and  not  simply  at  the  mercy  of  the 
ruler — it  is  these  that  constitute  the  striking 
difference  between  man  as  he  appears  in 
Asia,  and  the  Western  man.  It  is  this 
prominent    feature    of   individual   property 


PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR.        193 

independent  of  government,  and,  however 
often  disturbed  upon  erroneous  reasons  or 
for  tyrannical  purposes,  yet  far  more  often 
acknowledged  and  insisted  upon  by  theory, 
fact,  charter,  or  rebellion,  which  forms  one 
of  the  broadest  fundamental  differences  of 
European  and  Asiatic  history  ;  which  has 
invariably  shown  itself  clearer  at  the  periods 
favourable  to  freedom,  and  has  been  pro- 
portionately obscured  when  despotism  wield- 
ed its  fearful  sway,  under  whatever  form  or 
name  it  happened  to  make  its  appearance. 
With  the  security  of  individual  property 
must  general  morality,  manliness,  ajid  res- 
olute activity  stand  and  flourish,  or  with 
its  extinction  be  changed  into  slavishness, 
which  never  fails  to  crouch  before  the  des- 
pot, be  he  one  or  many,  that  disposes  of  the 
tenure  of  property.  It  is  this  feature  and 
peculiarity  of  private  property  which  gives 
it  so  great  an  importance  in  the  whole  history 
of  Europe,  and  so  little  in  that  of  Asia,  while 
even  the  Asiatic  himself  acknowledges  the 
Western  man  more  liberal  in  matters  of 
value  than  the  Eastern. 


VII. 

Concluding  Remarks. 

The  many  natural  advantages  of  the 
United  States ;  the  abundance  of  fertile 
land,  with  a  thin  population,  unexposed  to 
the  evils  and  dangers  with  which  crowded 
countries  are  rife ;  the  high  political  privi- 
leges enjoyed  by  every  one,  and  the  unim- 
peded pursuit  of  any  trade  or  profession 
open  to  every  person ;  the  descent  of  the 
people  from  the  most  energetic  and  enlight- 
ened nations  of  the  earth ;  the  distance  of 
America  from  those  countries  with  which, 
by  a  common  civilization,  it  is  nevertheless 
united,  and  its  thus  being  able  politically  to 
keep  aloof  from  many  diplomatic  influen- 
ces and  difficulties  which  nations  situated 
in  closer  vicinity  cannot  avoid — these,  and 
many  other  circumstances,  which  unitedly 
were,  at  no  previous  period,  enjoyed  by  any 
other  nation,  or,  at  least,  in  the  same  de- 


PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR.        195 

gree,  would  make  it  probable  that  general 
contentment,  if  it  might  be  expected  any- 
where where  mortals  dwell,  should  be  met 
with  in  this  vast  and  beneficently  endowed 
dominion  of  ours. 

But  it  is  not  so.  A  fretful  uneasiness,  a 
discontent  unable  calmly  to  enjoy  these  ac- 
knowledged blessings,  and  leading  to  a  de- 
sire of  changing  real  or  supposed  grievan- 
ces by  rash  and  extravagant  schemes  of 
sudden  innovation,  and  not  by  gradual,  and, 
therefore,  sure  improvements,  pervade  many 
large  classes  of  our  citizens.  Above  all, 
here,  as  in  other  countries,  many  people 
imagine  that  almost  every  ill  to  Avhich  hu- 
man life  is  subject  is  to  be  extinguished 
by  political  legislation,  or  by  some  radical 
and  violent  change  of  social  organization. 
Many  men  here,  as  elsewhere,  seem  to  be 
ignorant  of  the  fact  that  the  great  aphorism 
of  Bacon  regarding  man's  capacity  of  ac- 
quiring a  knowledge  of  physical  nature  ap- 
plies, and  with  as  much  force,  to  his  ability 
of  acquiring  a  sound  knowledge  of  the 
moral  nature    of  man   and  of   the    wliolo 


196       PROrERTY  AND  LABOUR. 

organization  of  society.  They  start,  in- 
considerately, new  theories  and  hazardous 
schemes,  without  patient  observation  and 
mature  reflection.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  im- 
aginary complaints  take  the  place  of  real 
ones.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  men  speak, 
write,  and  act  as  though  the  world  were 
not  yet  made,  but  must  now  only  be  res- 
cued by  their  exertions  from  a  shapeless 
chaos,  and  may  be  fashioned  by  them,  for 
the  first  time,  into  order. 

It  is  not  my  object  to  inquire  into  all  the 
causes,  moral,  religious,  or  political,  of  this 
uniformity  of  discontent  among  men — a  sub- 
ject doubtless  of  great  interest,  but  of  a  na- 
ture not  to  be  discussed  here  in  any  degree 
adequate  to  its  importance.  All  that  I  can 
propose  doing  is  to  offer  some  remarks  on 
this  discontent,  as  bearing  directly  on  the 
subject  of  property  and  labour.  Many  of 
the  previous  reflections  have,  indeed,  alrea- 
dy touched  upon  several  subjects  offering 
themselves  under  the  present  head.  To 
these  it  may  not  be  amiss  to  add  the  fol- 
lowing. 


PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR.        197 

The  free  nature  of  our  political  institu- 
tions requires  every  member  of  the  commu- 
nity to  judge  for  himself  of  whatever  affects 
the  public  welfare ;   a    variety   of  opinions 
must  be  the  consequence,  for  such  is  the  ef- 
fect of  freedom  in  every  sphere.     The  opin- 
ion which  many  thus  form  of  the  importance 
of  their  own  judgment  must  necessarily,  in 
numerous  cases,  be  raised  above  what  a  cor- 
rect appreciation  would  warrant.'      These 
are  unavoidable  evils.     No  enlightened  man 
who  perceives  the-m  would  on  that  account 
prefer  the  self-abandoning  resignation  of  the 
Asiatic,    inured    to    despotism,    Avho    never 
looks  to  his  own  means  of  righting  himself 
against  public  wrongs,  and  believes  he  has 
done  enough  if  he  patiently  submits,  and  ex- 
claims "  Allah  is  great !"     But  it  ought  not 
to  be  forgotten  that  due  contentment,  proper 
resignation,  absence  of  envy  and  jealousy, 

'  The  vole,  wbich  gives  a  positive  and  practical  importance 
to  the  opinion  of  the  voter,  contributes  greatly  to  enhance  his 
judgment  of  his  own  powers  ;  for  the  vote  of  all  is,  as  a  mat- 
ter of  course,  alike  ;  and  not  a  few  judge  that,  if  their  vote 
counts  as  well  as  that  of  any  other  citizen,  their  opinion  is  as 
sound,  and  their  intellect  as  strong,  as  that  of  anv  oih«^r  person. 


198        PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR. 

and  a  resolute  endeavour  to  enjoy  the  bless- 
ings given  to  us  by  Providence  to  the  best 
of  our  powers,  without  frittering  away  our 
means  and  iinbittcring  our  lives,  is  true 
manliness,  and  shows  far  greater  elevation 
of  soul  than  perpetual  restlessness  in  stri- 
ving for  unattainable  objects,  in  envying 
others  for  their  enjoyment  of  advantages 
which  have  been  denied  us,  and  in  forgetting 
of  how  much  they  are  deprived  which  we; 
on  the  other  hand,  possess  in  abundance. 

Contentment  with  one's  worldly  lot  is  not 
only  a  religious  virtue,  but  an  important 
political  one  ;  nor  is  it  less  necessary  for 
private  than  for  public  prosperity.  Yet 
how  many  are  there  that  daily  stir  up  a 
spirit  of  discontent,  frequently  for  no  other 
purpose  than  to  raise  their  own  importance  ; 
and,  comparatively,  how  few  men  look  to  the 
many  blessings  they  enjoy,  compare  them 
with  the  grievances  they  suffer,  and  draw 
from  the  comparison  new  motives  of  thank- 
fulness to  the  Creator  of  their  beins:  ?  But 
vanity  prospers  far  more  by  agitation  than 
by  calmness. 


PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR.        199 

Many  well-disposed  as  well  as  design- 
ing men  have  much  increased  this  want  of 
contentment,  by  diffusing  strained  ideas  of 
the  destiny  of  man,  and  by  representing 
labour  at  one  time  as  degrading  to  him,  or 
vastly  interfering  with  this  high-wrought 
destiny  ;  at  others,  by  representing  the  so- 
called  labouring  classes  as  more  important 
than  all  others ;  by  magnifying  the  disad- 
vantages to  v/hich  comparative  poverty  ex- 
poses them ;  and  again,  by  arrogating  for 
them  alone  the  distinction  of  hard-working 
men,  as  though  the  great  judgment  that  we 
shall  eat  our  bread  in  the  sweat  of  our 
brow,  pronounced  over  all  men,  applied  in 
the  present  age  to  them  alone. 

We  cannot  abrogate  social  order,  or 
change  human  nature  \ipon  which  social 
order  is  founded.  More  men  in  this  world 
must  needs  be  engaged  in  working  than  in 
contemplating  ;  and  he  that  labours  physi- 
cally during  ten  or  twelve  hours  of  the  day, 
cannot,  of  course,  be  as  fit  for  reflection 
as  the  man  who  follows  consecutively, 
and,  therefore,  with  increasing  intensity  of 


200        PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR. 

thought,  his  intellectual  pursuits.  A  Her- 
schel'  may  indeed  play  his  violin  for  his 
support  to  a  late  hour  of  the  night,  and 
still,  after  this  labour,  retire  to  his  great  as- 
tronomical task';  a  Spinosa  may  obtain  his 
sustenance  by  grinding  optical  glasses,  and 
yet  pursue  his  philosophical  meditations ; 
a  Franklin  or  a  Roscoe  may  be  engaged  in 
practical  pursuits,  and  yet  be  distinguished 
as  a  philosopher  or  an  historian ;  yet  it  re- 
quires a  Herschel,  Spinosa,  Franklin,  or 
Roscoe  to  be  able  to  combine  both,  :inf^ 
every  future  Herschel  or  Spinosa  will  break 
through  the  same  difficulties. 

It  would,  indeed,  have  been  a  great  mis- 
fortune for  mankind  had  Newton  been  for- 
ced by  circumstances  to  work  in  some  me- 
chanical trade  so  assiduously  for  his  sup- 
port that  no  time  had  remained  for  study ; 
but  it  would  be  far  worse  if  ever  it  should 
come  to  pass  that  the  majority  of  farmers 
or  mechanics  should  think  they  did  not  ful- 

1  Sir  William  Herschel  had  already  completed  many  tele- 
scopes, and  even  a  twenty-feet  reflector,  before  be  withdrew 
from  his  profession  as  a  musician. 


PROPERTY    A.\D    LABOUR.  201 

fil  their  destiny  if  they  did  not  strive  to 
become  Newtons.  Universal  wretchedness 
would  be  the  unavoidable  consequence  of 
so  overwrought  a  state  of  things.  There 
is  a  fair  exchange  in  this  as  in  all  other 
spheres.  If  some  individuals  are  freed,  not 
from  hard  labour,  indeed,  but  from  physi- 
cal labour,  they  offer  the  results  of  their 
work,  be  it  in  the  shape  of  new  truths  and 
discoveries,  of  increased  exchange  by  the 
pursuit  of  commerce,  as  teachers,  or  in  what- 
ever other  form,  to  mankind  in  return,  who 
greatly  profit  thereby.  They  could  not 
do  so  were  all  obliged  to  exert  themselves 
in  the  same  manner.  And  is  there  not  also 
a  compensation  ?  Does  the  workman  not 
enjoy  immunities  vainly  longed  for  by  oth- 
ers ? 

But  it  is  a  serious  error  to  suppose  that 
those  who  constitute  the  labouring  classes 
are,  because  they  must  labour,  either  degra- 
ded or  greatly  injured.  There  are  various 
spheres  of  human  activity,  many  superior 
to  others  ;  but  shall  a  professor,  engaged  in 
the  honourable  pujsuit  of  instructing  young 
Q 


202       PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR. 

men  in  a  college,  consider  himself  degraded 
because  he  must  acknowledge  that  the 
spheres  of  action  in  which  a  leader  of  the 
House  of  Commons,  or  a  commanding  gen- 
eral who  rescues  his  country,  moves,  are  in- 
finitely superior  to  his  ? 

No  one  can  deny  that  there  are  countries 
in  which  whole  and  numerous  classes  are 
depressed  into  Avretchedness,  and  even  into 
barbarity,  in  the  midst  of  surrounding  civil- 
ization and  refinement ;  but  it  is  poverty 
which  overwhelms,  not  labour  which  de- 
grades or  brutalizes  them.  And  where  are 
these  classes  of  depressed  labouring  men  to 
be  found  in  the  United  States,  the  country 
where  every  species  of  labour  meets  with 
its  fair  reward,  if  ever  it  did  in  any  land 
—  at  least  every  exertion  of  mechanical 
skill  ?  The  complaint  that  the  workman  re- 
ceives always  the  smallest  share  of  profit  is 
unfounded  in  the  United  States  ;'  and  if  hap- 

^  The  complaint  is  singularly  unfounded  in  a  country 
where  very  many  workmen  earn  from  ten  to  fifteen  dollars  a 
week,  and  eight  dollars  are  the  wages  for  common  skill  in 
common  trades,  and  where  it  very  frequently  occurs  that  jour 


PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR.        203 

piness  among  men  be  possible,  it  has  ever 
appeared  to  me  that  the  American  working 
man,  but  especially  the  American  farmer, 
has  as  many  elements  of  contentment  around 
him  as  are  vouchsafed  to  man.  Plenty  of 
fertile  and  cheap  land,  not  only  for  himself, 
but  for  his  children  also  ;  with  excellent  im- 
plements, fine  stock,  and  a  great  variety  of 
seed  and  fruit ;  with  fair  prices  and  cheap 
educts  for  his  produce  ;  with  liberty  and  high 
political  privileges,  together  with  considera- 
tion in  society ;  with  every  possible  career 
open  before  his  children ;  descended  of  a 
good  race,  and  surrounded  by  intelligent 
neighbours,  and  with  a  religion  which  com- 
forts and  strengthens — what  element  of  con- 
tentment is  there  Avanting  ? 

Labour  honours  and  does  not  degrade  ; 
every  honest  and  industrious  man  feels  it 
in  the  independence  of  his  mind,  whatever 
sentimental  orators  may  tell  him  to  the  con- 

neymen  abstain  from  setting  up  for  themselves,  alihough  unre- 
stricted in  all  their  movements,  because  they  find  it  to  be  to 
their  advantage  to  earn  the  high  wages  without  incurring  the 
risk  of  the  master  workman,  who  must  advance  capital,  pay 
rent,  &c. 


204        PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR. 

trary.  A  sound  political  community  is  ivot 
unaptly  depicted  in  our  forests.  There,  too, 
is  the  greatest  variety,  from  the  overshad- 
owing, broad  oak  and  the  towering  tulip- 
tree,  to  the  smallest  blade  and  floweret,  each 
striving  upwards  to  the  light  of  the  sun,  and, 
in  doing  so,  developing  its  own  peculiar  indi- 
viduality and  destiny;  no  one  interfering 
with  the  other,  but  all  serving  and  aiding  all ; 
none  degraded  by  the  other,  but  all  impor- 
tant in  their  own  way,  and  forming,  in  their 
union  only,  that  forest,  without  which  none 
singly  could  exist  or  be  what  it  is. 

Farmers  and  mechanics  have  been  term- 
ed by  way  of  excellence,  or  at  times  they 
have  arrogated  to  themselves  the  name  of, 
hard-working  classes.  Does  the  term  Hard 
Work  refer,  in  this  meaning,  to  the  time 
daily  engaged  in  work,  or  the  effect  it  has 
on  the  body,  or  the  remuneration  it  re- 
ceives ?  There  are  very  few  men  in  the 
operative  classes  in  the  United  States,  if 
any,  who  work  as  hard  as  many  scholars 
do.  The  farmer,  indeed,  retires  from  the 
field  at  sunset  with  a  fatigued,  yet  also  with 


PROPERTY    AND    I ABOUR.  205 

a  healthy  body ;  he  enjoys  his  meal  and  a 
sound  rest,  while  the  scholar  has  yet  many 
hours  of  more  exhausting  labour  before  him 
ere  he  retires  to  a  scanty  sleep,  perhaps 
many  times  interrupted  by  an  indifferent 
state  of  health,  the  effect  of  liis  laborious 
life.  Are  physicians,  lawyers,  ministers, 
professors,  naturalists,  not  hard-working 
men  ?  Who  of  all  the  working  classes  has 
worked  and  physically  toiled  as  hard  as  a 
Humboldt  ? 

We  see,  indeed,  some  individuals  of  these 
classes  enjoying  wealth,  and  perhaps  lei- 
sure ;  but  their  number  is  very  small  com- 
pared to  the  tailors,  carpenters,  shoemakers, 
or  farmers  who  have  obtained  wealth,  and 
either  wholly  retired  from  business,  or  con- 
tinue it  by  a  general  direction  only,  in  ease 
and  comfort. 

Very  few  scholars  have  arrived,  in  spite 
of  incessant,  hard,  trying,  and  most  useful 
labour,  to  wealth,  or  even  a  competency. 
Some  perhaps  object  that  it  is  their  own 
choice.  So  it  is,  but  not  more  so  than  tlie 
choice  of  a  trade  or  handicraft.      Tlieoreti- 


206        PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR. 

cally,  we  are  all  free  in  the  choice  of  our 
pursuits  where  no  castes  exist ;  but  there 
are  circumstances  in  the  life  of  every  man 
which  more  or  less  determine  his  career, 
and  wliich  prevent  many  possible  things  from 
being  feasible.  Yet  even  though  the  scholar 
were  perfectly  free  to  engage  suddenly  in  a 
pursuit  far  more  promising  in  a  worldly  Avay, 
but  should  not  enter  upon  it  because  his 
mind,  the  bent  of  his  whole  inward  man, 
Avill  not  permit  it,  is  he  on  this  account  a 
less  hard-working  man,  and  does  he  not  fol- 
low his  high  duty  for  the  benefit  of  his  fel- 
low-men in  obeying  the  call  which  his  Cre- 
ator makes  upon  him  by  the  endowments 
with  which  he  has  gifted  him  ?  May  it  not 
be  maintained,  with  perfect  truth,  that  many 
merchants  Avork  as  hard  as  farmers  ?  Or 
will  it  be  said  that  the  word  Hard  applies 
to  physical  labour  only,  and  not  to  intellect- 
ual or  mixed  labour,  which,  in  fact,  try  the 
body  more  ? 

Among  the  complaints  which  have  been 
proffered  by  some  fanciful  writers  in  the 
name  <'f  the  working-classes,  even  the  soil- 


PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR.        207 

mg  work  and  "  nastiness  of  workshops"  to 
which  they  are  doomed  have  been  held  up 
as  a  proof  of  their  degradation.  The  place 
where  the  farmer  works,  under  God's  own 
canopy,  the  workshop  of  the  carpenter  and 
many  other  mechanics,  are  healthier  and 
more  inviting  than  most  lawyers'  offices  or 
scholars'  studies  ;  and  if  the  dyer  shall  be- 
come ashamed  of  hands  tinged  with  indigo, 
and  the  scholar  of  the  inkspot  on  his  fore- 
finger or  the  dust  of  his  books,  we  may 
perhaps  expect  the  farmer  to  quarrel  with 
nature,  that  the  sun  which  ripens  his  corn 
makes  also  his  body  perspire. 

The  term  Working  Class  has  been  most 
arbitrarily  used ;  even  the  superintendent 
of  a  number  of  factory-girls  working  in  one 
room,  shopmen,  and  farmers  who  own  soil, 
have  of  late  been  excluded,  leaving  those 
only  that  work  physically,  without  the  use 
of  the  mind,  or,  in  other  words,  for  whose 
work  animal  or  mechanical  power  might  be 
substituted.  This  indeed  is  degrading  ;  but 
where  is  the  line  to  be  drawn  ?  The  fac- 
tory-girl has  to  use  her  mind  in  her  work, 


208        PROPERTY  AND  LA£OfR. 

and  why  is  she  not  cxchided  ?  As  the  schol- 
ar chielly  uses  his  mind,  yet  also  works 
physically  with  liis  hands,  so  does  the  ca- 
nal-digger chiefly  work  with  the  body,  yet 
also  with  his  intellect,  and  the  line  between 
the  two  cannot  be  distinctly  drawn. 

If  the  test  shall  be  whether  an  individual 
possesses  any  capital  or  not ;  in  other  Avords, 
whether  he  uses  any  property  of  his  own  in 
working  his  product  or  not,  we  have  not 
gained  a  more  accurate  distinction  ;  for  no 
work  whatever  is  done  by  the  free  labour- 
er in  civilized  countries  towards  which 
he  does  not  bring  some  capital,  that  is, 
some  values,  without  which,  under  existing 
circumstances,  he  cannot  begin  his  work, 
or  which,  if  he  himself  is  really  deprived  of 
them,  must  be  advanced  by  the  capitalist ; 
and  to  draw  a  distinct  line  fit  to  divide  so- 
ciety into  two  antagonistic  parts,  between 
the  poorest  woodsman,  whose  only  capital 
consists  in  his  clothes,  a  frying-pan,  and  an 
axe  and  knife,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 
richest  manufacturer  of  Leeds  o  fi  the  other, 
is  very  hard. 


PROPERTT  AND  LABOUR.        209 

It  is  surprising  to  see  how  easily  every 
agitation  or  presumptuous  theory  started  in 
foreign  parts  is  introduced  into  this  country. 
Crowded  by  population,  and  heavily  taxed 
as  England  is  ;  deeply  wretched  as  a  part 
of  her  people  are,  especially  in  the  manufac- 
turing districts,  it  is  ik)  wonder  that  many 
just  or  unfounded  complaints  should  be 
made.  France,  having  passed  through  a 
revolution  which,  in  cutting  off  the  whole 
previous  state  of  things,  and  uprooting  near- 
ly all  social  and  political  relations,  is  not 
equalled  by  any  other  in  history  for  its 
numberless  new  schemes,  more  or  less  bold, 
rash,  judicious,  or  arrogant.  This  too  is 
natural,  for  even  the  lapse  of  half  a  century 
has  not  sufficed  to  settle  France  after  such 
an  overthrow  of  things — an  overthrow  pre- 
pared by  centuries  of  wretched  government. 
But,  when  these  conceptions  of  individuals 
are  forthwith  introduced,  or  their  complaints 
are  reiterated  here,  where  the  circumstances 
to  which  they  apply,  or  out  of  which  they 
have  arisen,  do  not  exist,  it  becomes  a  mere 
handle   for  mischief.     Never  before  has  a 


210        PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR. 

country  existed  in  ■which  industry,  honesty, 
and  frugality  were  so  sure  of  success  in 
acquiring  a  fair  livelihood  and  an  honoura- 
ble standing  in  the  community  as  in  our 
own.  We  are  not  exempt  from  evils  of 
our  own,  and  grave  evils  too.  Flatterers 
who  wish  to  make  us  believe  the  contrary 
are  as  wrong  as  those  that  would  make  our 
farmer  or  mechanic  believe  that  he  was 
worse  off  than  the  slave  ;  but  the  truth  that 
industry,  honesty,  and  frugality  give  a  sup- 
port and  independence  is  certain,  and  one 
of  great  import. 

Still,  though  it  were  not  so,  no  truth  is 
more  firmly  established  than  that  the  equiv- 
alent given  for  labour  or  wages  depends,  in 
the  natural  course  of  things,  upon  demand 
and  supply,  upon  capital  productively  em- 
ployed by  that  labour.  There  is  no  such 
thing  as  forcing  wages  up  by  legislation  ; 
and,  though  hundreds  and  thousands  should 
die,  legislation  cannot  raise  wages  by  law. 
Legislation  may  remove  impediments  crea- 
ted by  previous  legislation,  by  which  labour 
was  prevented  from  obtaining  the  equiva- 


PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR.        211 

lent  to  which,  in  the  natural  and  unimpeded 
course,  it  was  entitled  ;  but  no  legislation 
can  possibly  raise  them  Jjy  maximum  or 
minimum  prices.  It  has  been  tried  full 
often  enough,  and  has  always  ended  in  in- 
creasing misery.  Prices  cannot  be  prescri- 
bed, without  infinite  injury  to  the  producer 
and  consumer,  either  by  government  or 
combination. 

On  the  contrary,  as  capital  must  ever 
seek  its  best  employment,  which  is  there 
where  profit  and  security  are  combined,  ev- 
ery forced  action  makes  it  flow  out  of  the 
country,  and  therefore  withdraws  so  much 
from  the  fund  which  must  sustain  labour, 
and  thus  increases  the  evil.  Nor  can  any 
human  power,  not  even  death  impending 
upon  the  exportation  of  capital,  prevent  it. 

Maximum  and  minimum  prices  Avere  de- 
creed in  France  during  the  Reign  of  Ter- 
ror, and  death  inflicted  for  taking  more  or 
less  ;  death  was  the  penalty  affixed  in  Spain 
to  the  exportation  of  the  precious  metals— 
but  all  in  vain.  Russia,  witli  the  threat  of 
banishment    in   Siberia,   and   an    extensive 


212        PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR. 

and  watchful  police,  did  not  succeed  in  pre- 
venting the  exportation  of  gold  whenever  it 
became  a  highly^  desirable  article  in  Eng- 
land, during  the  wars  of  Napoleon.  Nor 
can  any  combination  among  workmen  per- 
manently raise  wages.  On  the  contrary, 
they  interfere  with  the  free  production  of 
capital,  and  make  that  already  existing  flow 
to  other  places  of  employment.'  Nothing 
can  permanently  raise  wages  with  those 
nations  who  belong  to  the  great  civilized 
family  of  men  but  a  greater  abundance  of 
values  to  be  offered  for  them,  and  values 
cannot  be  legislated  into  existence.  They 
must  be  produced.  New  sources  of  indus- 
try must  be  opened  ;  communications  be  ac- 
celerated ;  free  and  safe  exchange  of  prod- 
ucts must  be  promoted  ;  habits  of  sobriety 
and  thriftiness,  of  saving  and  reproduction, 
knowledge  and  education,  must  be  diffused  ; 
emigration  must  be  favoured  ;  the  process- 
es of  production  must  be  shortened  and  be 
made   more  saving  ;  substances,  until  now 

1  The  reader  is  again  referred  to  Torrens  on  Wages  and 
Combination,  and  Potter  on  Political  Economy. 


PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR.         213 

refuse,  must  be  turned  to  account ;  restric- 
tions must  be  removed  ;  political  morality 
must  be  increased  ;  riots  and  all  other  dis- 
turbances, as  well  as  idleness,  must  be  di- 
minished ;  a  higher  sense  of  duty  in  sacred- 
ly fulfilling  our  obligations  must  be  estab- 
lished throughout  the  land  :  it  is  by  such, 
and  only  such  means,  that  wages  can  be 
raised,  or,  what  amounts  to  the  same  thing, 
that  the  prices  of  commodities  can  be  low- 
ered. All  else  can  only  enhance  the  price 
of  things  in  comparison  to  the  amount  of  la- 
bour, the  wages  for  which  are  equal  to  that 
price,  and  must  affect  the  working  classes 
most,  as  they  are  the  great  consumers.  No 
law  interfering  wnth  the  accumulation  of 
property,  or  cutting  off  its  freely-chosen 
transference,  can  remedy  the  evil,  or  even 
become  a  palliative.  It  is  the  people  at 
large,  the  working  classes,  who  would  needs 
suffer  first  and  most  bitterly  were  ever  the 
attempt  made  to  put  such  superficially  con- 
ceived, and  yet,  in  their  effect,  cruel  schemes 
into  practice. 


214        PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR. 

Neither  do  we  want  legislative  acts  to 
prevent  the  accumulation  of  riches  in  single' 
hands.  Riches  do  not  accumulate  to  a  dan- 
gerous amount,  in  the  present  highly  indus- 
trious age,  for  want  of  legislation.  The  nat- 
ural and  unfailing  tendency  is  towards  a 
constant  distribution  and  diffusion  of  wealth. 
It  is  by  legislation,  by  positive  enactments 
only,  that  this  natural  course  can  be  arrest- 
ed, and  that  riches  can  be  made  to  accumu- 
late in  a  degree  so  disproportionate  to  the 
general  standard  of  wealth,  that  they  become 
dangerous  to  liberty  and  public  welfare. 

Acknowledging  the  existence  of  this  dan- 
ger, when  unwise  positive  laws  intercept  the 
natural  and  inherent  diffusion  of  wealth,  it 
seems,  nevertheless,  that  it  is  greatly  over- 
rated by  many  modern  writers,  especially 
when  their  remarks  apply  to  the  riches  which 
accumulate  in  the  hands  of  an  individual 
during  his  lifetime  by  the  natural  effects  of 
industry,  judgment,  and  good  luck,  or  in  the 
hands  of  his  successors  by  our  present  laws 
of  individual  inheritance. 

Riches  are  considered  incompatible  with 


PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR.        215 

liberty.  These  were  the  views  of  the  an- 
cients, and  many  modern  writers  copy  what 
they  said.  The  ancients  were  right  in  taking 
this  view,  but,  before  we  reiterate  their  re- 
marks, we  must  inquire  whether  our  state  of 
things  is  the  same  with  theirs,  or  whether 
there  be  not  an  essential  difference  between 
ancient  and  modern  liberty,  between  the 
free  city-states  of  antiquity  and  the  consti- 
tutional liberty  of  modern  national  or  en- 
larged states  with  extensive  territories,  over 
which  equal  comprehensive  guarantees  of 
individual  freedom  extend. 

The  great  problem  of  ancient  political 
philosophers  was  the  security  of  the  contin- 
uance of  the  state,  and  every  consideration 
of  the  individual  was  merged  in  this  great 
problem.  We,  in  modern  times,  feel  so  safe 
on  this  score,  that  it  has  become  almost  a 
secondary  consideration.  With  us  the  rights 
and  protection  of  the  individual  stand  fore- 
most. The  ancient  states  were  founded 
upon  absolutism  ;  that  is  to  say,  power, 
wherever  it  dwelt,  was  considered  tanta- 
mount ;  and  the  more  democratic  the  states 


216        PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR. 

became,  the  more  unlimited  was  this  pow- 
er, and  the  more  decidedly  came  the  indi- 
vidual to  be  considered  merely  as  a  compo- 
nent part  of  the  state,  in  which  alone  he 
found  his  Avhole  m-eaning  and  existence. 

The  modern  citizen  is  considered  to  be  a 
member  of  his  political  society  for  the  pur- 
pose of  finding  his  individual  rights,  indis- 
pensable to  the  fulfilment  of  his  career  as 
Man,  the  more  firmly  guarantied.  The 
essence  of  ancient  liberty  consisted  in  the 
equal  participation  of  every  one  in  the  gov- 
ernment ;  no  matter  how  this  was  effected, 
even  though  it  should  be  by  lot ;  or  what  this 
government  decreed,  even  if  it  interfered 
with  the  most  private  concerns,  required  the 
sacrifice  of  the  institution  of  the  family,  or 
demanded  the  loss  of  what  we  consider  the 
most  invaluable  personal  rights.  Modern 
liberty  consists  essentially  in  guarantees  of 
the  individual  rights  of  man,  and,  conse- 
quently, in  checks  upon  power,  and  the 
protection  of  the  minority  against  aggres- 
sions by  the  majority.  Hence  our  consti- 
tutions, binding  even  overwhelming  majori* 


PROrERTY  AND  LABOUR.         217 

ties.  The  ancients  felt  themselves  men,  be- 
cause they  were  citizens ;  we  are  citizens, 
because  we  know  that  without  political  so- 
cieties we  cannot  obtain  the  great  objects 
of  man. 

Under  these  circumstances,  it  was  natural 
that  the  ancients  should  have  known  nothing 
of  Opposition,  such  as  this  vital  element  of 
modern  liberty  and  safest  of  all  measures  to 
unite  liberty  with  peace,  exists  in  our  con- 
stitutional states.'  All  opposition,  nay,  all 
displeasure  with  public  measures,  even  al- 
most all  dissent,  were  viewed,  therefore,  as 
factious,  and  seldom  failed  really  to  become 
so  in  cases  Qf  sufficient  importance. 

Riches  were  then  really  dangerous ;  and 
democratic  absolutism  naturally  requires  the 
levelling  principle  applied  to  property,  which 
is  necessary  for  regal  absolutism.  Absolu- 
tism, whether   popular   or   monarchical,  in- 


1  I  have  g'iven  my  views  on  the  important  difforcnce  between 
ancictit  and  modern  liberty  at  full  leni^th  towards  the  conclusion 
of  the  first  volume  of  my  Political  Ethics,  and  those  on  what  I 
feel  tempted  to  call  the  great  institution  of  tho  Opposition,  in 
the  chapter  relating  to  tiiat  subject  in  tho  same  work. 

R 


218       PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR. 

gtinctively  takes  umbrage  at  any  influencf^  or 
power  out  of  its  own  sphere  of  action ;  and,  as 
the  ancients  decreed  the  contribution  of  large 
sums  because  a  citizen  was  too  wealthy,  so 
do  we  find  the  Eastern  systems  of  despot- 
ism, to  this  day,  engaged  in  what  they  hold 
to  be  one  of  the  highest  problems  of  states- 
manship— the  absorption  of  large  private 
fortunes.  They  are  thus  employed  in  a  con- 
tinual process  of  annihilating  or  preventing 
the  accumulation  of  values,  and,  therefore, 
of  destroying  one  of  the  great  means  of 
spreading  civilization,  and  the  establishment 
of  firmer  security  and  public  peace.' 

'  The  jealousy  of  the  Eastern  governments  leads  not  only  to 
a  frequent  transfer  of  property  from  the  private  individual  to 
the  monarch  (which  process  alone  indtfces  a  considerable  de- 
struction of  values),  but  actually  to  an  intentional  waste,  so  that 
the  possessors  shall  be  reduced  to  a  degree  of  wealth  more 
compatible  with  the  safety  of  the  government.  The  feudal 
princes  of  Japan  are  bound  to  appear  periodically  at  Yedo 
with  a  retinue  of  many  thousands,  said  to  amount  at  times 
even  to  ten  and  twenty  thousand,  for  the  purpose  of  saddling 
them  with  great  expense.  The  same  object  is  at  other  times 
obtained  by  the  ziogoon  (or  nominal  hereditary  vicegerent  of 
the  mikado,  but  virtual  sovereign)  inviting  himself,  in  Queen 
Elizabeth's  style,  to  the  abode  of  some  feudal  lord.     This  ne- 


PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR.        219 

Our  fair  and  noble  constitutional  liberty 
is  as  much  above   the   jealous  fear  of  the 

cessary  waste  of  property  in  Asia,  when  once  acquired,  and 
the  consequent  prevention  of  production  and  accumuiaiion, 
owing  to  the  danger  of  possessing  wealth,  form,  in  my  opin- 
ion, one  of  the  causes  which  have  produced  a  phenomenon  in 
history  of  the  highest  importance,  namely,  that  Asia,  with  the 
immense  hoarding  of  treasures,  has  accumulated  so  little  wealth 
compared  with  Europe,  where  there  is  no  hoarding,  yet  great 
accumulation  of  wealth,  although  so  much  younger  in  civili- 
zation. 

Adam  Smith,  as  well  as  Say,  treat  of  the  causes  of  rapidly- 
ries  compared  with  its  accumulation  in  the  Middle  Ages.  The 
increased  wealth  in  Europe  and  America  during  the  last  centu- 
inquiry  may  be  extended,  for  the  phenomenon  fully  deserves 
it.  Why  are  the  Europeans  and  their  descendants  so  much 
wealthier,  or,  in  other  words,  why  have  they  succeeded  in 
accumulating  values  to  an  amount  infinitely  greater  than  that 
which  exists  in  Asia  1  Among  the  various  causes,  the  follow- 
ing may  be  the  most  important :  The  one  just  mentioned, 
namely,  the  natural  jealousy  of  despotism,  the  insecurity  of 
property,  and  the  general  prevalence  of  mere  force.  This 
naturally  induces  people  to  hoard  those  values  which  men 
have  succeeded  in  producing  in  spite  of  the  insecure  state  of 
things.  \Vc  are  struck,  in  reading  the  English  works  on  the 
campaigns  in  India,  for  instance,  with  the  enormous  treasures 
found  in  the  residences  of  the  princes.  All  these  hoarded 
treasures  were  unproductive  values  while  thus  hoarded.  Pri- 
vate individuals  hoard  likewise,  in  order  to  hide  their  wealth  ; 
but  no  treasure  can  be  hidden  without  being  unproductive. 
Then,  the  princely  pageantry  so  peculiar  to  Asia  ;  the  costli- 


220        PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR. 

riches  which  an  individual  may  amass,  in  a 
political  point  of  view,  as  it  is  above  the 
fear  of  seeing  arms  in  the  hands  of  every 
citizen.     We  know  that   our  governments 

ness  of  Budhuism  and  Brahmaism  ;  the  great  number  of  per- 
sons withdrawn  by  them  from  production,  without  instructing 
or  essentially  meliorating  men ;  the  many  richly-endowed  tem- 
ples, with  their  costly  feeding  of  elephants,  &c.,  make  these 
modes  of  worship,  at  least,  very  expensive,  although  Moham- 
medanism is  probably  one  of  the  least  so  of  the  wide-spread  re- 
ligions. And,  lastly,  the  pursuit  of  knowledge  being  fettered 
by  their  religious  dogmas,  as  was  mentioned  in  a  previous  note. 
It  seems  that  all  these  circumstances  must  have  powerfully  co- 
operated to  prevent  the  production  of  values,  or  the  dissipation 
of  them  after  they  had  been  produced.  Civilization,  as  was 
observed  in  a  former  passage,  requires  a  great  amount  of  value. 
To  give  a  single  instance  :  Mr.  Hoffmann,  in  his  Statistics  of 
Prussia,  shows,  upon  a  very  moderate  computation,  that  the 
law  which  requires  all  children  of  a  certain  age  in  the  king- 
dom of  Prussia  to  visit  the  common  schools,  prevents,  for  the 
time,  the  production  of  about  ten  millions  of  Prussian  dollars 
annually.  No  doubt,  the  kingdom  amply  gains  by  this  sacri- 
fice, because,  the  better  a  nation  is  educated,  the  more  pro- 
ductively will  the  trades  be  pursued  ;  knowledge  is  advanta- 
geous even  in  a  pecuniary  way  ;  and  the  more  knowledge  is 
diffused  in  a  country,  the  more  firmly  secured  is  its  peace ;  but 
peace,  that  is,  security,  enhances  the  values  of  land  and  every- 
thing else.  This  is,  however,  the  very  thing  which  it  was  in- 
tended to  prove.  Civilization,  which  is  highly  productive  in 
its  character,  requires  a  great  amount  of  value  to  be  firs*  at- 
tained, and,  when  attained,  to  be  promoted. 


PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR.        221 

are  safer,  although  our  Astors  and  Girards 
may  command  many  millions  of  dollars, 
than  ancient  states,  with  all  their  jealousy 
of  riches,  just  as  we  know  our  President  to 
be  more  safely  lodged  at  the  White  House, 
without  a  single  sentinel,  than  the  Eastern 
despots,  who,  from  anxious  fear  to  trust  their 
safety  to  armed  men,  form  their  inner  pal- 
ace-guards of  well-accoutred  females,'  be- 
cause among  them  the  ruler  need  not  fear 
conspiracies. 

Our  newspapers  ;  our  debates  and  parlia- 
mentary law  ;  our  industry  and  rapid  ex- 
change, domestic  as  well  as  foreign  ;  our 
common  law,  a  body  of  rules  of  action 
grown  up  spontaneously,  and  independently 
of  direct  legislative  or  executive  action  ;  the 
vastness  of  our  territories,  and  the  large 
numbers  of  subjects  to  one  and  the  same 
state  ;  our  sciences,  our  arts,  and  the  difl'u- 
sion  of  knowledge  ;  our  revered  representa- 
tive principle,  which  is  of  a  tempering  and  be- 

'  To  this  it  has  actually  come  in  Further  Asia,  where  these 
body-guards,  consisting  of  armed  viragoes,  are  frequently  met 
with. 


222       PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR. 

calming  character  ;  our  art  of  printing,  and 
many  other  elements  constituting  our  social 
and  political  life,  are  so  many  checks  upon 
the  political  influence  of  riches  in  the  hands 
of  individuals.  Indeed,  can  this  influence 
be  traced  ?  Are  our  richest  men  politically 
the  most  influential  ?  No  one  will  seriously 
assert  it. 

Riches,  unsupported  by  anything  else, 
Avill  be  found  to  be  rather  in  the  Avay  oJ 
political  influence  than  otherwise.  Such  is 
the  result  of  my  observation.  In  conjunc- 
tion, however,  with  other  advantages,  the 
possession  of  large  property  will  imdoubt- 
ediy  add  Aveight.  But  so  will  a  thousand 
other  advantages,  if  properly  supported  by 
talent  and  character.  Wealth  stands  on  a 
par  with  a  winning  countenance,  with  a  fine 
voice  or  fluent  eloquence,  and  with  the  fact 
of  one's  being  the  son  of  a  cherished  and 
widely-known  citizen,  of  accomplishments 
and  a  liberal  education.  All  these  may  aid  a 
man,  if  properly  supported  by  sterling  worth, 
but  he  would  greatly  deceive  himself  were 
he  to  rely  on  the  one  or  the  other  alone. 


PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR.       223 


ADDENDUM. 

TuE  author  has  stated,  in  the  note  ap- 
pended to  page  218,  that  the  sacrifice 
brought  by  the  Prussian  people  to  their 
general  elementary  school  system  amounts 
annually  to  eight  millions  of  Prussian  dol- 
lars. He  wrote  from  memory;  and,  finding 
now  that  his  statement  is  not  correct,  and 
that  the  case  is  much  stronger,  he  is  anx- 
ious to  give  the  facts  as  they  actually  are. 

Mr.  Hoffmann,  director  of  the  general 
Statistical  Board  of  Prussia,  states,  in  his 
work,  the  Population  of  the  Prussian  Mon- 
archy, Berlin,  1839,  that  there  arc  in  that 
kingdom  2,830,328  children  of  both  sexes, 
between  eight  and  fourteen  years  of  age,  or, 
as  they  are  called,  "school-bound"  (schul- 
pflichtige)  children.  The  expense  actually 
incurred  by  the  state  for  the  support  of  the 
elementary  schools  amounts  to  seven  mill- 
ions of  Prussian  dollars.     These  children, 


224        PROPEKTY  AND  LABOUR. 

however,  might  already  produce  valuesy 
and  contribute  their  share  to  the  bulk  of  na- 
tional wealth,  instead  of  wliich  they  merely 
consume,  and  produce  nothing  while  going 
to  school.  If  the  value  which  each  child 
might  produce  per  day  is  put  down  at  the 
very  low  valuation  of  one  silver  groschen, 
the  production  of  seventy-one  millions  of 
Prussian  dollars  annually  is  thus  prevented 
by  the  elementary  school  system  of  Prussia. 
Mr.  Hoffmann  adds  to  this  statement  the 
following  judicious  remark  :  "  A  people^ 
therefore,  Avhich  understands  how  to  em- 
ploy its  time  productively,  actually  makes  a 
sacrifice,  the  magnitude  of  which  is  rarely 
estimated  to  its  full  amount,  if  it  withdraws 
the  children  from  labour  to  send  them  to 
school ;  and  this  fact  explains  why  nations 
so  rich  and  civilized  as  the  English  and 
French,  find  it,  nevertheless,  so  difficult  to 
make  a  comprehensive  elementary  school 
system  general.  The  more  industry  ad- 
vances, and  the  more  productive  it  becomes, 
the  greater  becomes  also  this  sacrifice,  which, 
it  is  true,  is  abundantly  repaid  by  the  ef- 


PROPERTY  AND  LABOUR.        225 

fects  of  a  judicious  general  school  system ; 
still,  it  requires  a  great  amount  of  general 
wealth  to  be  capable  of  making  the  sacri- 
fice." 

The  reader  will  remember  the  remarks 
which  have  been  made  in  this  work  respect- 
ing the  great  amount  of  wealth  requisite  for 
civilization,  and  the  reciprocal  effect  which 
wealth  and  civilization  exercise  upon  one 
another.  School  systems,  like  religion  with 
her  churches,  seminaries,  ministers,  and  rest 
from  labour  on  Sundays,  or  government  with 
Its  paid  officers,  courts  of  law,  armies,  and 
navies,  require  much  wealth  ;  for  as  to  their 
first  direct  operation,  they  only  consume,  or 
prevent  production;  they  cannot  produce. 
But,  inasmuch  as  they  promote  peace,  knowl- 
edge, light,  rectitude,  honour,  safety,  and 
civilization  in  general,  they,  on  the  one 
hand,  save  incalculable  amounts  of  value, 
which  otherwise  must  have  been  wasted, 
and,  on  tlie  other  hand,  aid  most  powerfully 
llie  productive  energies  of  a  nation. 

THE    END. 


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